jason that. governing coalition council concedes to feet and other action overshadowed by the easter sunday bombing. how i missed this is al jazeera live also coming up tear gas and petrol bombs violence between protesters and police as a university campus and hong kong. for a legal way to go back and be with the people i plea from exile he tells al-jazeera he wants to return to believe and finish his presidential. under all this latest

stand by their decision to increase fuel prices and impose rationing despite a furious response. we begin in sri lanka where the opposition party led by got a bare rajapaksa has declared victory in the presidential elections his rival subject the premadasa conceded early results put rajapaksa over the 50 percent mark needed to avoid a 2nd recount rajapaksa is the brother of former president mahinda rajapaksa and was defense chief when the tamil tigers were defeated 10 years ago the election was dominated by rising religious tensions and a slowing economy or subject says he will stand down as the deputy leader of the united national party in a statement he said we've just witnessed the most peaceful presidential election in the history of our independent republic this was a result of the democratic gains and institutional reforms that have taken place

over the last 5 years that empowered an independent elections commission and restored the rule of law my appeal to the incoming president is that he take this process forward and strengthen and protect the democratic institutions and values that enabled his peaceful election as the 7th president of sri lanka for more let's speak about it smith who's in colombo for us so bad this is a return of the rajapaksa political dynasty essentially to power. it is they were mahinda rajapakse was kicked out of office in the 2015 presidential election by an electorate seemingly tired of the constant allegations of corruption and. human rights violations allegedly committed by got to by rajapakse in his role as defense minister towards the end of the civil war but this time around the rajapaksa is corralled the symbol of buddhist vote 75 percent of this island's

population is similar buddhist and most of them seem to have cast their votes for the roger axes but he's issued a statement by rajapakse a conciliatory statement really he says as we usher in a new journey for sri lanka we must remember that all sri lankans a part of this journey let us rejoice peacefully with dignity and discipline in the same manner in which we campaign they are of course delighted with this victory there's no official on camera statements yet from the rajapaksa or from the rajapakse is until the electoral commission officially announces the results sometime later today. than and also those easter sunday bombings in 100 stand there just how big a factor was security in deciding this election i mean that was that the centerpiece of rajapaksa is campaigning. yet the fallout from easter sunday bombings really overshadowed this election campaign 263 people killed when a suicide bombers targeted churches and hotels in sri lanka in the wake of those

attacks by rajapaksa announced his candidacy for the presidency he said he would restore security to sri lanka and in the months following the attacks a damning parliamentary report exposed how a complete failure of communication during the presidency in the prime minister ignored warnings that came from the intelligence services but said the bombings were about to happen and indeed they did so rajapaksa was able to play on that failure by the ruling coalition and it's that argument that he will bring security and stability back to sri lanka but has won over the voters despite those serious human rights that you see reflected overseas but have not been a can major concern it seems of the majority of the voters in sri lanka starting balance method watching all the developments for us in colombo thank you ben and now police in hong kong have used tear gas and water cannon on protesters as

a university campus you've been throwing petrol bombs large fires have been lit around the hong kong polytechnic university in some of the most traumatic scenes of the 5 months of unrest all schools have been told to stay shut on monday because of the violence our correspondent deborah pollen is on the ground and has the latest. it's hard to tell what's happening is you know you suddenly have a major confrontation and then a lull like this but let me set the scene 1st for you here i am standing right in front of the university this is a major crossroads of the protesters have taken over to my left you will see other riot police that covered all ends of the junction they have water cannons have been firing blue dye also into the university and also the protesters trying to move them behind the volta been firing tear gas periodic lee trying to push them back behind now each time they do that the protesters retreated a little bit so let me walk towards where the protesters are

a little bit further as you can see in front of me there are they are there the barricaded themselves with whatever they can get their hands on pretty much and as which has always been the symbol of these protests the umbrellas are to fend them off fend off any police tear a gas car and any water cannon so they move back they would treat slightly and then the police move back themselves and white next to where those umbrellas are is the university though so if you could just pan over there paul a little bit and you can see a brick building so that made that a fortress i was here over the weekend and inside it's like a little military barracks a village with everyone having their own their tasks to carry out to help with these protests. from there there have been farming molotov cocktails which haven't been very effective really particularly because the water canon immediately puts them out there been far east and then been throwing things or trying to throw

things at the police armored vehicles and the police riot police themselves and as you mentioned there yes a media officer was hit by an arrow when i was here in friday i saw students with both and arrows practicing their shots so that is one of their tactics too but since we've been here today we haven't seen arrows from here at this junction. here's former president evo morales has told al jazeera he should be allowed to return and complete his final time in office the united nations is warning that violence in bolivia could spin out of control and prevent new elections on friday supporters were shot dead during fighting with security forces and there were further violent protests and clashes between security forces and supporters of saturday people have been launching from the region of japan to the central city of cochabamba even spoke to algiers john hall and outlined his next moves. up

into sunday if more rallies was latin america's longest standing current leader now pressured to resign by the military after accusations of electoral fraud he suddenly believe he is former president and in exile in mexico but off the less than a week he told out 0 he's already planning to go home. i can't be outside of the country i'm used to being with the people as a union leader president doing work i miss it a lot i'm looking for a legal way to go back and be with the people as they resist the dictatorship the coup he says if allowed back he wouldn't seek to run in fresh elections that's a bone of contention between him and the opposition but he still wants to complete the last 2 months of his term. i don't know why they're so scared of evo they don't want me to participate. in everything for life or for democracy or a time my candidacy but they should let me finish my term is that understood not

understood by now interim president cheney and years she said he could face charges if he goes but the coalition of discontent started back in 2016 with moralists to change the constitution to rome for a time there was a referendum the majority voted against you having a 4th. and afterwards you did it you did run again. and that seemed to go against the spirit of democracy in the country where you could interpret it like that but so you know on the 21st of february 2016 the lie won enough lies to beat us with 70000 votes moral lesson the right united and beat us based on the lie you and c.n.n. were in on it the u.s. embassy prepared that lie he's unrepentant the moment and he also insists that there wasn't fraud in the elections a month ago this by investigators from the organization of american states saying that they too was diverted to

a secret service that there were clear manipulations he says that organizations politically motivated which of yells i had a lot of trust or some trust but now i don't have any in the oas i should be called the organization of the states of north america not america he did call fresh elections off to be oas preliminary report but by then it was too late many c.f.l. morale is as a good leader who simply stayed too long you managed to almost have poverty the economy grew under you and you brought stability now. given what's happened if you could go back in time would you have run again for this. would you have gone to going to that referendum or if you could have your time again would you have bowed out gracefully garden walk you don't look for the post of presidency 6 you out that's my experience in the unions in my experience in the

presidency and i want to tell you that after the 1st mandate i was happy content to go back to cochabamba when you when people say trust and go again and. that in the end may have been his undoing and in his way libya is in crisis with police killing protesters violence from both sides. you can only look for before john holmes how does it make scarcity. iran's supreme leader ayatollah ali khamenei has backed a field price increase that sparked a nationwide protests he denounced what he calls hooligans for taking part and sabotage that's as police and security forces force with demonstrators across dozens of cities again on saturday protesters are angry that petrol is being rationed and that prices are rising by as much as 200 percent positive ari has more from tehran. a number of incidents have been reported overnight and early morning by the official state news agencies here they include the setting

a gas station on fire as well as attacking a police station in the city of shiraz and a number of religious leaders have been arrested in the city of mashhad as well as about 60 people have also been arrested in a muslim their own province now all these incidents are being carried out by what the supreme leader has called hooligans the highest authority in iran has been speaking to religious students in tehran early sunday morning where he voiced his opinion on the latest news about the fuel price increase let's hear what he had to say. i'm not an expert on this issue but i said if heads of government make a decision i would support it and i will the heads of 3 branches have made a decision based on expert study so it should be implemented meanwhile the special committee has been meeting behind closed doors in parliament to discuss the developments of these fuel that's happened the speaker of parliament ali larijani

has said that the parliament will support this decision as it stands and there will be a series of committees looking into how this price increase will affect the rest of the country and they will try to minimize the impact that this increase will have on other prices in the country to make sure that the people's concerns are addressed about rising cost of goods in the cities across the country. well the weather is next but still ahead the preliminary evaluation for saudi arabia stays on the well company falls short of some expectations and we're headed to get me to find out why so many people are in despair and want to protest despite the recent violence.

hello again welcome back to your international weather forecast well over the last few days we have been talking about this area of low pressure really bringing a lot of problems across central europe the flooding the winds as well as we have a lot of snow to talk about now in parts of switzerland austria and into germany you can see the clouds right there across the region but i want to show you in austria what it has been looking like just the last day we do have power outages out for many people across the area more snow is expected in fortune we're also talking a cell service is out in some locations as well over the next few days though this is what it looks like the air of low pressure is going to continue in the next couple of days we do expect to see still $120.00 centimeters of snow for parts of switzerland as well as into austria so more of the same problems will be going on across much of the area as we go from sunday as well as into monday still very heavy rain passing across the adriatic but it looks like on monday a lot of the rain begins to be but for italy we do have

a nother band of rain that is coming into play so we watch it very carefully zurich here's a 3 day forecast still quite cool a little below average normally this time of year at 7 a mix of snow and rain on sunday a little bit better on monday but by the time we get towards tuesday mostly cloudy conditions a temperature of 5 in overnight at 0. that was sponsored by qatar it. was taken to military are those that i was submitted me turn up not in force they were say don't think the intention was to make sure that injures women no longer entitled to be the basic rights or citizenship rights once their villages were burned were funneled into what is now become complex we're moving into our basic you're presuming exiles coming soon on al-jazeera.

again i missed. the top stories this hour rajapakse says party has declared a victory in sri lanka's presidential election as rival subject premadasa conceded as early results put rajapaksa over the 50 percent mark needed to avoid a 2nd recount. police in hong kong have used tear gas and water cannon on protesters as a university campus have been throwing petrol bombs all schools have been told to stay shut on monday because of the violence. and bolivia's former president evo morales has told al-jazeera he should be allowed to return and complete his final term in office the un is warning that country the violence in the country could spin out of control and prevention your own actions. now saudi arabia has put

a preliminary evaluation on that stage and oil giant around code of between $6.01 trillion dollars that's short of crown prince mohammed bin sounds target of 2 trillion the kingdom says it's looking to raise more than $25000000000.00 by selling a 1.5 percent stake in its oil company it's taking bids from investors right now on the final price will be set after that phase which sent which ends on december 5th there is economics editor joins me now crown prince mohammed bin someone must be disappointed by this valuation i imagine are think very much so 1st of all remember in 2016 he wanted 2 trillion dollars for the computer wants to raise $100000000000.00 for other projects that they want to invest in now what we have come to a point where basically international investors. the idea that they would be willing to invest in this company at anywhere above $1.00 trillion dollars but he is pretty

lucky that the saudi public will be buying into this point 5 percent of the shares will be sold to the south is saudi public and looks like that they'll take a huge allotment of those shares plus he's encouraged many of the country's billionaires who were holed up in the in the in the in the hotel in riyadh to. to basically invest in the in this particular company as well so on that level it will be a success because on the day of the shares will be sold the pension funds investment funds will basically go into the market and pick up any of the stock that's left over all added why is it that international investors are not so interested in buying shares this level of reasons for this now there's different ways of. valuing. the use of the oil price free cash flow and diffidence and on most of these measures the math just did not stack up and many international

best don't fancy being a passenger in a car which has been driven by the saudi authorities the saudi authorities have said listen you know if we want to tell saudi aramco invest in projects which aren't oil related and this is a huge problem you might want to remember that the russians made gazprom pay $50000000000.00 for the for the olympics in sochi so investors are saying you know really you know this is not something that would be interested in less than $1.00 trillion dollars maybe would be interested in stepping into the market to buy some of the stock. well this is all for saudi arabia about diversifying our economy right so what is what will they do with the money they spend on this is rather interesting because saudi arabia does not need to sell any stock in this particular company you might want to you're probably too young to remember this but way back in the 1970 s. britain was forced by the i.m.f.

to go and sell a stake in because they wanted to borrow money they want to the bailout from the from the i.m.f. for $17.00 $1000000000.00 ringback. in this position recently they invested $70000000000.00 in soft bank which is an investment fund based in japan which is invested. and we all know that that particular i.p.o. got pulled very recently because people didn't believe the valuation of that so saudi arabia does not need to do this and they are doing this because they want to internationalize their their markets that they could raise money for any project that they wanted because bond investors would be more than willing to hand over money to the saudi government. with an analysis for us our economics editor thank you thank you. influential iraqi cleric has called a nation a nationwide strike beginning on sunday protests started in october against a lack of jobs and public services but they've now grown into demands for

a systemic change now more than 320 people have been killed in those demonstrations and josh are going to aim our correspondent is live for us in baghdad natasha talk us through what the situation is like there now as schools and shops open or people participating in the strength. of the roads were quite quad coming into tahrir square we're seeing a lot of students in the numbers do seem to be bigger than we would typically see this time of day on a sunday if you look behind me you can see pretty significant plume of black smoke there's likely the remnants of a tire fire i'm guessing that has been set by protesters you mentioned that the prominent shiite cleric thought or called for an issue not wide strike in iraq it's probably because his followers comprise just walk in parliament they are the primary opposition they are united with the protesters in calling for the resignation of prime minister. and calling for elections in baghdad as i said

we're expecting more people in tahrir square than we would typically see on a sunday in basra things appear to be quite tense the ports the operations there are once again halted as protesters walk the entrance we're told that they've blocked the roads to several oil fields in the lock the primary road leading from basra to baghdad there's no school today in basra in may soon and that's 3 of the local councils have actually given people the day off from work and school so we expect to see significant numbers of people attending protests there so really what we're see that protesters are continuing to maintain their momentum and try to keep the pressure on a government that they believe. has not gone far enough in its reforms right now we have traps of an election law and a new electoral commission that are waiting to be reviewed by the parliament but of course the one thing that protesters want which is for the prime minister to step

down has not happened as a result of the ongoing tensions not only here in iraq but in iran iraq at the is this insistence of the iranian government shut down a southern border crossing it's going to prevent people from crossing between the 2 countries until further notice we're told it will not impact trade there is a lot of hostility among protesters being directed at iran in fact protesters in karbala torched the iranian consulate protesters believe that iran has an outsized influence in the political sphere in iraq they want an end to what they say is meddling in their internal affairs meanwhile the iraqi human rights commission is saying that there is a rise in the targeted kidnappings in assassinations of activists on saturday and activists is dame as i'd known rustam was assassinated outside his home in northwest baghdad that follows the assassination of an activist in me son and

another activist and his wife in basra earlier this week the prime minister did mention the kidnapping of a major general with the interior ministry he says that there are there is an increase in kidnappings he's calling on people to be aware of what he says are people acting in the government's name kidnapping these people he is calling for the release of this general from the interior ministry and vowing that there will be an investigation not only into this case but in 2 other kidnapping cases the iraqi human rights commission has documented 5 kidnapping cases of activists are now touching on the ground there in baghdad all being updates from his rap today thank you natasha. now the phone call between donald trump and the ukrainian president has been described as inappropriate by a senior aide to the u.s. vice president that's according to a newly restrained script from jennifer williams who testified before

a closed door hearing last month about the call which is at the center of an impeachment inquiry she's due to appear again in a public hearing next week as is the u.s. ambassador to the e.u. gordon sunderland she has returned he has more from washington d.c. . wednesday's public testimony by the current u.s. ambassador to the e.u. good and some of them is now turning out to be the one of the key moments in this investigation he'd already raised eyebrows because in his initial deposition to congress he said he knew nothing about any kind of quid pro quo and then subsequently a few weeks later he submitted written test of it said oh you know i said i didn't know anything about a quick break or in fact it was me who told you queen officials that if they did some digging on the bidens or maybe the military aid that we promised you might be released quite a change he didn't tell congress that at the time now on friday we had information from a stall for the ukrainian embassy that he was present at

a lunch i saw him hold on trump on his cell phone and trump said so are they going to do the investigation words to that effect and some of them said not ever going to do it i love you though that having anything you want again something he didn't tell congress during his initial deposition or the subsequent written written deposition and then on saturday we have information from the national security council's expert on russia and europe and by and large there was a very good day for donald donald trump this deposition does support many of donald trump's assertions that i was nothing wrong with the july 21st call that it was only classified into a secret because of a mistake and and so on but i don't fact as far as he was concerned no one really knew about any quid pro quo and the ukrainians themselves weren't necessarily aware of an arms freeze until late august until september the 1st one golden some of them told them that maybe a quid pro quo might work again all of this information hasn't been hasn't been shared with congress by some grand himself in the key question now will be when

golden sun and i'm told the ukrainians give us the burden and other and that the arms the arms will be released was he acting on his own initiative or was he acting under the orders of gold trump that's going to be key it's interesting that morrison the person who from the n.s.c. seem to think that someone might might be acting on his own initiative perhaps but that's not going to be a key question. yemen's transport minister has criticized a power sharing deal that was signed last week with separatists in the south. says the saudi brokered deal threatens the legitimacy of his own government he called it a destructive collusion with u.a.e. backed fighters the riyadh agreement to end months of violence between government forces and those u.a.e. backed fighters military sources in democratic republic of congo say rebels from the allied democratic forces are attacking the eastern region of benny at least 15 people were killed in attacks on the same area on friday night the a.d.f.

rebels are retaliating after the army and u.n. peacekeepers launched a major new offensive against the group last month the fighting is happening in dense forests near the ugandan border now at least 20 people have been killed during protests in guinea thousands have demonstrated against a proposed change to the constitution that would allow president alpha condé to run for a 3rd term there as well as valid reports. from. devastated they see the government protest begin in capital conakry on fears that his wife was left to bring up your 3 month old baby on her she says she tried to prevent him from note to join the protest. when you look over there now when my husband did not come home and after his friend called my sister and said they had killed him i said it's a joke we're just parted before he left i told him don't go out when i tried to call

him and ask him to return but he was not picking up my calls and he never came back . earlier police killed 2 other people opposition supporters wearing a red jacket stoop to the streets to voice their anger at the president of accounting and to reject his plan to change the constitution so he could run for the. new life going to. read the game in youth for protesting in order to prevent the foundations of the republic from being destroyed in order to keep the men in power we are not against him in person but we are against him remaining in power beyond his term in office. the latest demonstrations were called for by the national front for the defense of the constitution miles leading the protests young protesters tires in the streets of the capital and torched a bus police said they used force after protesters threw stones at them was public anger against constitutional reforms began several weeks ago and there

have been many violent confrontations with security forces since then i thought least 20 people have been killed i'm listening to national has condemned what he describes as a human rights abuses in guinea including the deaths of protesters at a huge number of arbitrary arrests. are disease. this is out there and these are the headlines rajapakse says policy has declared victory and sri lanka's presidential election has rival subject premadasa concede as as early results put rajapaksa over the 50 percent locked needed to avoid a 2nd recount rajapaksa the brother a former president mahinda rajapaksa i was also defense chief when the tamil tigers were defeated 10 years ago. police in hong kong have used tear gas and water cannon on protesters as a university campus has been throwing petrol bombs all schools have been told to

stay shut on monday because of the violence. bolivia's former president evo morales has told al jazeera he should be allowed to return and complete his final term in office as the united nations warns the violence in the country could spin out of control and prevent new elections speaking to al-jazeera in mexico city rollins said he's now looking at how he can return home. i can't be outside of the country i'm used to being with the people as a union leader president doing work i miss it a lot i'm looking for a legal way to go back and be with the people as they resist the dictatorship the. iran's supreme leader ayatollah ali khamenei has backed a fuel price increase that sparked a nationwide protests he denounced what he calls hooligans for taking part in sabotage bads as police and security forces fought with demonstrators cross dozens of cities on saturday protesters are angry that petrol is being rationed and prices

are rising as much as 200 percent saudi arabia has put a preliminary valuation on a state owned oil company aramco of between 1.6 and $1.00 trillion dollars that's short of crown prince mohammed bin sellers target of 2 trillion the kingdom says it's looking to raise more than $25000000000.00 by selling a 1.5 percent stake in its oil company is taking bids from investors and the final price will be set after that phrase. and conventional iraqi cleric knocked out. the nation will a nationwide strike beginning on sunday protests started in october against a lack of jobs in public services but they've now grown into demands for systemic change more than 320 people have been killed in those demonstrations well those are the headlines and next up it's talk to. the prime minister. the british on the 31st about trying to make its country the greatest place.

britain departure is still a. drama of bricks it on al-jazeera. the. catalonia is a region in the northeast of spain it is partially autonomous but in recent years independent sentiments have risen among many cattle. in fact. the former leader of the regional government challenge madrid and called for a referendum. i'm a bit of the barcelona. that executive office i came here over 2 years ago to discuss with the president. his plan for independence this is what.