sri lanka's governing coalition candidate concedes defeat in an election overshadowed by the easter sunday bombings. live from also coming up tear gas and petrol bombs violence between protesters and police as a university campus in hong kong. a way to go back to the people. from exile even more as tells al jazeera he wants to return to finish his presidential to. stand by their decision to increase fuel prices and impose rationing

despite a furious response. begin in sri lanka where the opposition party led by rajapaksa has declared victory in the presidential elections his rival subject conceded early results put rajapaksa over the 50 percent mark needed to avoid a 2nd recount rajapaksa is the brother of former presidents my hindu rajapaksa and was also defense chief when the tamil tigers were defeated 10 years ago the election was dominated by rising religious tensions and a slowing economy the president says 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 fire. the years that empowered an independent elections commission

and restore 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 bennett smith has more now from sri lanka's capital colombo the rajapaksa family is back in power in sri lanka in 2015 min the rajapaksa lost the presidential election seemingly kicked out of power by an electorate that had had enough of allegations of corruption and concerns of human rights rights violations towards the end of his country's civil war and that's when the winner of today's election got a pirate attacks was defense minister but this time the rajapaksa is have successfully corralled it seems the majority of the sinhalese buddhist vote 75 percent of his population is sinhalese poorest and most of them have cast votes for the rajapaksa is the main opposition candidates premadasa he needed to get enough

minority votes from turmel's muslims to try and stop rajapaksa crossing the 50 percent threshold he didn't quite manage it he has handed over conceded that he has lost this election and offered his congratulations to go to buyer rajapaksa. now police stuff and hong kong have been hit by metal balls and an arrow they have used tear gas and water cannon against protesters in return large fires have been led to around the hong kong polytechnic university some of the most dramatic scenes of the 5 months of unrest all schools have been told to stay shut on monday because of the violence our correspondent david holland has the latest from hong kong. you can see that police are not moving at their armored vehicle watch or a can and spray blue dye at the protesters trying to get them to disperse protesters have blockaded themselves into that road using whatever they can

including umbrella boards to try and fend off any police action this has been going on for hours the prove least trying to move forward protesters will move back a little bit and then they will move forward back to their position. if you can see behind my shoulder that brick building there that is the polytechnic university students have been there over the weekend since tuesday pretty much barricading themselves then building somewhat of a fortress the been trying to prepare molotov cocktails with a truck back at the police rock and other projectiles whatever they can pretty much get their hands on which often proves ineffective when you see the water cannon put out the fires and the police continue to push forward with tear gas and rubber bullets which they have been firing earlier in the day not the main thing that they're trying to protect is not their university. press holding

themselves up in the university yes an effective what they are trying to do is protect a major highway that they have all key applied that is just further down there that highway links into a tunnel 7 and that tunnel connects hong kong island to the rest of the city that is part of the action that they have been trying to push through across the city this week blockading key parts of the city to try and disrupt hong kong and that is what they're trying to stop from happening if. they want to keep that highway because as long as they have it there blockade. so they are keeping up with this strong role that you can see there are firing petrol bombs at the water cannon proving to be quite effective meanwhile the police are pushing back with their

water cannon and occasionally with tear gas and this has been going on * for hours . bolivia's former president evo morales has told al jazeera he should be allowed to return and complete his final term in office the united nations is warning that violence in bolivia can spin out of control and prevent new elections there on friday the supporters were shot dead during fighting with security forces and there were more clashes between security forces and supporters on saturday people have been launching from the region of. the central city of cochabamba i even spoke to al jazeera as john holland outlined his next. 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 the next 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 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 it's the culmination of discontent that started back in 2016 when moralists to change the constitution to rome for a time there was a referendum the majority voted against you having

a 4th. and afterwards. if 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 after the 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 he managed almost half of poverty the economy grew under you and you brought stability now. given what's happened if you could go back in time would you run again for this. would you have gone to refresh or if you could have your time again would you have bowed out gracefully garden walk was a you don't look for the post of presidency 6 you out that's my experience in the unions and 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 win people's trust and go again and. that may have been his own doing and in his way libya is in crisis with police killing protesters violence from both sides. you can only

look for before your home. or now venezuela's opposition leader is using the situation in bolivia to make a fresh push for president nicolas maduro to step down thousands of people rallied in caracas on saturday in support of murderers main rival one quieter address the crowd outside the bolivian embassy telling his supporters to keep protesting until free elections are held in venezuela iran's supreme leader ayatollah ali khamenei has back to feel price increase that sparked a nationwide protests he denounced what he calls hooligans for taking part and sabotage bads as police and security forces fought with demonstrators across dozens of cities on saturday protesters are angry that petrol is being rationed and the prices are rising by as much as 200 percent oxygen barry has more from the capital . 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 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 yemen's transport minister has criticized a power sharing deal signed last week with separatists in the south side of algebra and he says the saudi broken dale threatens the legitimacy of his own government and called it destructive collusion the riyadh agreement aims to end months of violence between government forces and u.a.e. backed fighters. often ahead on al-jazeera the preliminary evaluation of a saudi arabia state and oil company falls short of some expectations plus. we will

be the e.u. on the 29 march 2000. and 9 that breck said battleground rival party is in using the online wild to try to get their election messages across. the logan to welcome back well here across parts of south asia we are watching the storm system right now making its way towards the philippines it has been moving quite slowly over the last few days it has been bringing the actual arrival date just behind schedule but right now we do expect to see on monday a landfall and system coming into luzon possibly as a typhoon it's going to be very weak we do think in this area but still very heavy rain across much of luzon over the next few days as the system intensifies and moves across the area we could be seeing well over $250.00 millimeters of flooding

rain across that region as well well here across austria we are going to be seeing a big change over the next few days now we do have a frontal boundary down here across much of the southeast with it it is cooler down here towards the south but out here towards the west of here towards the north though we are talking about temperatures that are quite hot for alice springs here on monday $36.00 degrees there we are looking at melbourne actually coming up as well so as we take a look at what's going to be happy in the next few days well it is going to be very very hot here in adelaide temperatures few are going to be coming up as well take a look at the 3 day forecast we expect to see 31 degrees here on monday coming down to about 29 so not much of a drop but as we go towards wednesday $42.00 well above average for this time of year. from a goss to jerusalem to buy em on the go moses claimed soon manal inform my lost to history and background. 3 short films that show how people

take a stand against evictions in a struggling communities the 1st time they arrested i was 11 years old a.j. selects on al-jazeera. i know there i missed all the attention and reminder of top stories this hour rajapaksa policy has declared victory in sri lanka as presidential election his rival subject president 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 the rules of counting on protesters as a university campus who've been throwing petrol bombs in schools have been told to stay shops on monday because of the violence. and around supremely the ayatollah ali khamenei has backed a fuel price increase of up to 200 percent that sparked a nationwide protest he denounced what he calls hooligans for taking part in sabotage at least 60 people were arrested on saturday evening. now saudi arabia has put a preliminary valuation on its state owned oil giant around the curve of between $6.01 trillion dollars that's still 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 now taking bids from investors and the final price will be set off to that phase which ends on december 5th out of there is economics that is abu dhabi says crown prince mohammed bin will be disappointed

with this valuation. 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 we have come to a point where basically international investors have baulked at 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 no 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 in the in the hotel in 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 to the saudi pension funds

investment funds will basically go into the market and pick up any of the stock that's left over. and eventually iraqi cleric who walks out of has called a nationwide strike beginning on sunday protests started in october against a lack of jobs and public services but they've since grown into calls for regime change 320 people have been killed in those demonstrations the toxic uname has the latest from baghdad. the roads were quite card 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 solder called for an issue not wide strike in iraq it's probably because his followers comprise the largest bloc in parliament they are the

primary opposition and they are united with the protesters in calling for the resignation of prime minister maliki 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 block 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 seeing is 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 drafts 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. lebanon's former finance minister has withdrawn his name from contention to be the next prime minister mohammad suffered he said it would be difficult to form a harmonious cabinet and a statement he added that he hoped outgoing prime minister saad hariri would be renominated but our correspondent joins us now live from beirut to somebody is not the most popular with protest as we know that will this be enough to placate them will be enough to take them off the streets here but it definitely is going to be seen as a win for them because the moment that it was just reported that he may be in contention for that job you had protests taking place outside his home as well as his hometown in the northern city of tripoli or some people there where. you would

even be considered because of his history of alleged corruption so this is something that at least will be seen as a victory for them but the reality of it is maybe beyond that which is the power struggle that's taken place behind the scenes in parallel to the struggle on the streets in terms of the protest movement how he resigned as prime minister he nominated for the as a potential successor to him but a lot of analysts believe that he was only doing that in order to essentially get rid of other contenders for that position so that the bloc of michel aoun and hezbollah would be forced to essentially come begging back so how do you see and ask him to continue being prime minister and therefore that would give him more power to appoint a government with ministers of his own troops and bearing in mind that. bloc in parliament is actually the minority bloc in the majority one belongs to the alliance of hezbollah and president michel and so whilst obviously we're looking at

the protests there's a lot that's going on behind the scenes jim you're talking about this political settlement potential political settlement but what next for the country what's it going to take to actually get all of those protesters off the streets and reach some kind of resolution here. it's a very good question and you know as small as lebanon might be in terms of size it is a lot more complicated than many larger countries in the sense and particularly with this current situation yes there is a large popular anti establishment anti corruption and to government movement that's been taking to the streets for months now but there are so many other factors at play obviously the secretary and makeup of the political system here but arguably more so the decision about what will happen doesn't lie in beirut it lies in the run and in washington and that's where people are looking to see how the central sponsors of the main political parties here are different the way they will be given in times of finding

a consolation if we're to look at the domestic kind of movements here really what happens in the next few hours will be critical because there are calls for large protests today sunday which marks one month since the protests began on october the 17th if there are huge amounts of people that will give a lot more momentum to somebody like south especially with the withdrawal of the true essentially force his further in any negotiations with his opponents if there are and then maybe those who are supporters of president assad all in on for the level say well you know this movement has lost its stamina and therefore let's get back to trying to find some sort of agreement that maintains to some extent the status quo that was present prior to october the 17th. then watching developments for us on the ground in beirut thank you general. now the phone call between u.s. president donald trump and the ukrainian leader of the to me is that the lenski has been described as inappropriate by a senior aide to the u.s. vice president

a transcript from jennifer williams who testified behind closed doors at the impeachment hearing last month has been released and in it she also said trump's insistence that ukraine carry out politically sensitive investigations struck her as unusual she is due to appear and public at the hearing next week as is a former white house national security council official to morrison who has also expressed concerns about trump's remarks she have returned he has more from washington d.c. . wednesday's public testimony by the current u.s. ambassador to the e.u. good and someone is now turning out to be the one of the key moments in this investigation he 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 the old 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 of the ukrainians themselves weren't necessarily aware

of when an arms freeze until late august until september the 1st when gordon 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. military sources in democratic republic of congo say rebels from the allied democratic forces are attacking eastern region and benny at least 15 people were killed in attacks in the same area on friday night the i.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 the latest polling shows in u.k. prime minister barak johnson's governing conservative party remains a well ahead of the main opposition labor party and as election day approaches all sides are turning to online platforms to attract undecided voters as nadine barber reports they're even creating. this designed to go viral. we will be the e.u. 29 march 2000. it's made to raise a lot but it also makes a serious point about the conservatives failing to deliver bricks it when they said they would this online video is the work of momentum the grassroots movement that supports labor leader jeremy corbyn one example of how political parties are using eye catching digital content in the battle for undecided voters and boris johnson's conservatives are firing back with a series of memes all with a similar message but with different treatments depending on whom they're aimed at showing top man ben gearin the young new zealanders behind many of them were hired

after helping australia's center right liberal party score an unexpected election victory this year we are posting 30 posts a day and more than 20250 a week that means you have to generate and publish a new piece of content every 20 minutes. they're saying what we call the boomer means because you have to create stuff out quickly i love this one here this sort of horrible mix of neil paying a very bold canary yellow this advertising professional who runs his own blog on the latest political means says this deliberately garry's content is often counter-intuitively popular with older voters we have seen some of the advertising in the conservative party. under 30 five's and i actually it's got more of a sort of retro cool eighty's vibe to it where it's actually quite polished and well crafted in the way that city uses. the visual language of the internet in

quite a quite nice way for the digital team momentum the emphasis is on spreading content with real people talking about their lived experience of issues like health care but they say they'll continue to put out satirical videos too you can talk very seriously about the things this government has done you can talk seriously about things like grand fell into it seriously about things you know like excess deaths as a result of austerity but then you can also talk reverently because i think you know people are just always communicating one time in their communicating and so many in this campaign we're seeing online content that's generating lots of laughs and then we're seeing content that's getting laughed at now some experts say what really matters is simply that people are engaging with the outputs but are those sounding alarm bells. i think the important thing is that in trying to get those simple catchy messages across they don't lose sight of the importance of being honest with the electorate because sometimes the simple message isn't necessary the most accurate message well i can't hide it from you i've been thinking

a bit about this general election campaign what's clear is more than ever before the search for hearts and minds is happening online as much as it is on doorsteps the al-jazeera. while you can as always find much more on our web site al jazeera dot com. and again this is out of there and these are the headlines gaza by rajapakse says party has declared victory in sri lanka as a presidential election his rival subject premadasa conceded as 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 also defense chief when the tamil tigers were defeated 10 years ago than its fair has more from the capital rajapakse as have successfully corralled it seems the majority of the sinhalese buddhist vote 75 percent of this population is

buddhist and most of them have cast votes for the rajapaksa as the main opposition candidate premadasa he needed to get enough minority votes from tumbles muslims to try and stop rajapaksa crossing the 50 percent threshold he didn't quite manage it he has handed over conceded that he has lost this election and offered his congratulations to got a buyer rajapaksa. police stuff and hong kong have been hit by metal balls and an arrow they've used tear gas and water cannons against protesters in return all schools have been told to stay closed on monday because of the violence. bolivia's former president even murali as has told al jazeera he should be allowed to return and complete his final term in office as the u.n. warns that violence in the country could spin out of control and prevent new elections speaking to out of there in mexico city iran has said he's now looking at

how he can return. iran's supreme leader ayatollah ali home in a has backed a fuel price increase that sparked a nationwide protests riot police and security forces fought with demonstrators on saturday protesters are angry that petrol is being rationed and with prices rising by as much as 200 percent. saudi arabia has put a preliminary valuation on a state owned oil giant aramco of between $6.01 trillion dollars that's short of crown prince mohammed bin some of the targets 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 well those are the headlines the news continues here on al-jazeera after a.j. so let. a career in doomsday cultist would hundreds of foley was to a tropical paradise. one o one a student mr gates the secretive 6 accused of abuse and violence in featured. on

al-jazeera. so i'm trying to sites no no no i can't really identify because it's really really confusing. like on identify my i'm trying to identify my house i'm trying to identify my house my family. to go to as a stranger there is my own my own story and history my background. how good the moment got done if no room for a. star in the end of the.