really conflict it was quite a surprise to find myself in russia in the middle of a war through the sailors whose ships of the desert sands the yellow fleet on al-jazeera. the been. long. ago it was inappropriate it was improper. a white house official testifies it was wrong for donald trump to press you praying to investigate a political rival. a one time in jordan this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up the dwindling number of protesters still inside a hong kong university weigh up their options as police wait outside. the u.k. prime minister and his main challenger a trade blows of a break that in their 1st one on one to the election debate. and chile's president

and its security forces and overstepped the mob promising to punish those guilty of abuse. the white house's ukraine expert has testified that he felt a sense of duty to flag up a phone call that's at the center of impeachment proceedings against donald trump that's an account of alexander than men was among 4 people questioned on tuesday the trumpet ministration has dismissed their testimonies as personal opinion and conjecture alan fischer reports from washington. this could be a pivotal week in the donald trump impeachment hearings many of the shuttle to give evidence were on the controversial july call with the ukrainian president that kills a key claim the hearings are based on secondhand reports giving evidence of tenet colonel alexander vigilant a career army officer and the ukraine expert on the national security council he was concerned by the call by president trump pushing for an investigation into

democrat joe biden and his son immediately took those concerns to a white house lawyer is improper for the president of the united states to demand a foreign government investigate a u.s. citizen and a political opponent a decorated veteran of the war in iraq vidlin his see these actions in testifying under attack from president trump supporters who question his loyalty this is america is the country i've served and defended that all of my brothers have served and here right matters. thank you sir gilbert. thanks one of vice president might pence's beads jennifer williams also appeared before the committee saying she had the call and considered it political in nature republicans are insisting the president did nothing wrong and was fully entitled to demand an investigation into biden and his son's business dealings in ukraine as

millions of americans are watching throughout the hysteria and frenzied media coverage 2 key facts have not changed that are critical to these impeachment proceedings one ukraine in fact received the aid and 2 there was no investigation into the bidens then we had an appearance from kut volcker the former special representative to ukraine he's a witness called by republicans but he dismantled a key republican talking point that joe biden did something wrong as i previously testified i have known vice president biden for 24 years is an honorable man and i hold him in the highest regard former national security official timothy morrison admitted the ukrainians were told the u.s. wanted something from ukraine to unfreeze the that had been allocated an actual quid pro quo that the ukrainians would have to have the prosecutor general. make a statement with respect to the investigations as a condition of having the ablest. as democrats try to build

a compelling case the republican leader of the senate where the definitive vote on action will be held says he doesn't see donald trump being removed from office it's inconceivable to me to be 67 votes to remove the president from office president trump who's described some of those giving evidence as never trampers in the past actually acknowledged he doesn't know most of them but i don't know i never heard of him i don't know any of these people other than i have seen. a couple of their investigation the white house is continuing to mount its defense issuing a statement from keith kellogg the national security adviser to vice president mike pence he says he was on the call to the ukrainian president and despite evidence from others on tuesday he insists president bush did nothing wrong alan fischer al-jazeera washington. exhausted but defiant a small number of protesters still inside the hong kong university campus are refusing orders to come out and surrender some have been trying to escape and avoid

officers who surrounded the building the standoff began on sunday after some of the most intense violence and more than 5 months of to government protests during the worst of it demonstrators hope petrol bombs and even shot arrows at riot squads threaten to respond with live ammunition spring and sarah clarke is live for us now in hong kong sara so just bring us up to date on the situation inside the university how many students are still left inside this. well the latest reports down indicate that there are between 60 and 100 protesters who are still inside the campus behind me and they've been holed up for days now they started to put blockades in barricades around the campus at polytechnic university in color around friday thursday friday last week the secretary for security has just updated the numbers on those people who left the campus he said i had hundreds of voluntarily surrendered he said 300 of those are under 18 but we believe all up the total of $1100.00 have left but as i mentioned up to $100.00 of the defined to

be the last radical kind of hard core group are staying inside and refusing to leave and we also know a number of petrol bombs are still within sight that campus and the right place have completely surrounded this particular university for days now but they've got 24 hour around the clock monitoring simply trying to stop all the rest of those who do try and flee overnight we did have some to try to get to a skype but they couldn't and as a result they've gone back within the campus again now where we are is a bit very busy part of central ca learned and we can say that there is still a large number of disruptions on the roads as well as the train lines where the roads were blocked yesterday a very busy part of talent on the harbor front we had burnt out cars we had rubbish we had tables and chairs we had everything thrown across and blocking those roads they have now being cleared but we also have some time stations which just. closed today on wednesday and that includes hung at home which is a very busy trying session it's a bus and trying to change

a connecting hong kong to mainland china so it's a large parts of this particular district still disrupted by the chaos that we've seen over the last few days in hong kong and the u.s. senate has just passed a human rights and democracy act which aims to protect human rights in hong kong what can this achieve do we think. well this was a unanimous vote in the senate and this is particularly this is a y. of the u.s. threatening to hong kong that they will potentially invite to trade sanctions on hong kong and threats of trade problems if they undermine the one country 2 systems policy in particular human rights now it's now that now has to go to the house of representatives and then they want to go shiite particular wording of that act of course president donald trump has to sign that off another senate also a process 2nd bill that looks at banning the export of various minissha ins to hong kong police and that includes rubber bullets tear gas pepper spray and stun guns now the sporting our wednesday morning to hong kong government has responded to

that that said so the u.s. plays don't interfere in hong kong as internal matters the chinese chinese government also responded now they described it as unnecessary this act unnecessary and unwarranted and they've said it will hamper the relations between u.s. hong kong and china if it does go ahead through the house of representatives all right to sarah clarke there in hong kong sara thank you israel says it's fighter jets have launched attacks in syria the army says warplanes hit syrian army targets in iran's quds force in the early hours of wednesday morning serious as many of the rockets were shot down a day earlier israel intercepted 4 rockets launched towards the occupied golan heights from syria. the organization of american states says political instability and human rights abuses are having a damaging effect on democracy in nicaragua hundreds have been killed jailed or forced into exile since protests against the president daniel ortega began in april last year opponents want him to step aside and allow elections. in chile police say

they'll stop using birdshot pellets on protest as a means to now the suspension follows an admission by president sebastian pinera that security forces have committed abuses and promised to punish those who are guilty. as more from santiago. on monday thousands took to the streets in sheila's capital sent the agony protesters commemorated one month since the unrest began nationwide but demonstrations like these are taking place almost every day across china. so more incidents involving police using violent tactics to disperse crowds. and it would seem to say the level of violence of this government with our president there's almost a pandemic of people who have lost their eyes or have been the one not only that there are people who have been tortured or have disappeared it's almost like a dictatorship under democracy. this ongoing crackdown by security forces against demonstrators has become one of the biggest sources of anger among protesters were

in place a. police just a ploy to your guess once again against peaceful demonstrators and it's these tactics that people are protesting against and reforming the country's security forces is just one of the many constitutional changes that protesters are demanding . she lay in president. has admitted to the use of excessive force by police. down in unfortunately and despite the firm commitment and all the precautions we take not only the government but also our forces and police to protect the human rights of all in some cases the protocols were not respected there was excessive use of force abuses or crimes were committed. in an effort to calm the unrest public officials have announced that a referendum to establish a constitutional convention will be forthcoming. this is a historic opportunity for chileans who for the 1st time. have

a chance to write their own constitution this is what the people want and they don't want political parties deciding what is written in essence this is nothing more and nothing less and the creation of a new chilean republic. measures by the government to change the president's cabinet and hold a constitutional referendum have done little to calm dissent. pretty near the front lines of monday's protest the scene was chaotic protesters armed with slingshots and rocks were met with tear gas and rubber bullets several people were injured amidst the chaos. for the most part the protests marking for weeks upon the rest were mostly a celebration although the consensus among chileans is that there's still a long way to go. below santiago chile. time for a short break here now just when we come back a warning from the pentagon that i still could be on the rise once again in syria plus. i'm florence leon young turn lake east in china where harry craps off on

that so popular and expensive that that imitations in the market that story coming out. hello there it has been a better day also across much of essential and eastern regions of the united states quite a bit of cloud as you can see but really the worse weather as out towards the west now plenty of cows streaming in up into washington state and surprisingly will not surprise me this of coals is what we see in seattle chad the skies and some rain but it is on its way east was not a bad day on wednesday call it 10 celsius but you'll notice where most of the weather is the southwest and in fact we have got flash flood watches in place through southern california and through much of our own or we could have some flash floods here the rain of course coming down on a very dry ground. 17 celsius in los angeles on wednesday that is 6 degrees below

the average little bit better on thursday everything sort of shifts further east was but still those warnings in place no coals to the mountains and very unsettled and quite wintry up into northern sections of the great lakes and central areas of canada no sign of any snow across the cow band but we have got plenty of shadows as we head through wednesday is a very unsettled they generally through much of jamaica and there's rain showers all my way towards haiti and also the dominican republic tending to stay in the picture on thursday so not a bad day by then the across much of cuba up tools the bahamas and not by the mexico city at 22 celsius. the british iraqi journalist visualizing complex statistics in a simple. i think it was a summary sites of the communities to break apart from those systems and to collect data in a way that makes

a represent different community challenging mainstream misconceptions keep the pie crates and control instructions doesn't alienate people it doesn't make people feel like i'm not small instance transfuse truth is that anyway. welcome back a quick reminder of our top stories here on the al jazeera more witnesses than question each month inquiry against president trump one of them white house ukraine expect that in the tunnel alexander then been described trump's phone call to the grains president ask him papa competent to run the press in ukraine to invest in it

for life. israel says it's fighter jets of launch attacks in syria the army says warplanes hit syrian army targets on the wrongs police force in the early hours of wednesday morning. and protesters who are still holed up inside a hong kong university campus and are accusing to surrender to police some of been trying to escape and avoid officers have surrounded the building. the pentagon's warning that i still is getting stronger again because of the u.s. withdrawal from syria and turkey is subsequent offensive in a report it says those developments of allowed isel to rebuild its capabilities and resources it also warns the death of ice the leader of a blackout that daddy will do little to slow the resurgence and goes on to say that the group is likely to focus on freeing fighters who were held by kurdish led forces while not a hashimi is director the center for middle east studies at the university of denver he says a stabilizing force is needed to fill the power vacuum in the region. the short term challenge is to try and stabilize this area it was previously stabilized by

american troop presence in alliance with kurdish forces so now that that arrangement has been. changed i think that's the immediate i think the pressing challenge is to find some alternative security arrangement that prevents this area from further destabilizing allowing isis to you know insert itself and to reorganize but of course the longer term challenges still remain in these have to do with you know that the social economic and political conditions that produced isis to begin with to have to do with you know authoritarian regimes unemployed young people the lack of hope and also the ideological challenge that isis still poses as a as a movement that can still attract disgruntled young muslim men from around the world so i think those are the you know those are the 2. immediate imperatives that i think need to be dealt with 3 ships that was seized in the red sea by yemen's who

the rebels have now been released that's according to south korea to the south korean ships and the other from saudi arabia now being held in the port of data the saudi government condemn the seizure as a terrorist operation who the said their actions were justified dutch police say they found 25 refugees and migrants inside a refrigerated container on a cargo ferry to have been taken to hospital they were discovered just as the ferry left the netherlands bound for the u.k. just weeks ago the bodies of 39 people were found in a truck container east of london. boris johnson and jeremy corbyn have faced each other in the 1st televised leaders' debate of the u.k. general election the prime minister and the labor party leader jousted on brags that the health service and even christmas were going to fall of the debate. prime minister boris johnson came into this t.v. debate with a double digit lead in the latest opinion polls with the possible disadvantage of

being the incumbent in this race the labor party leader jeremy corbyn came to solve it with the pressure of knowing that with less than 3 and a half weeks until polling day he needs a breakthrough soon with the 6 lots were drawn at corbin spoke 1st on public services to many families without a proper home struggling to make ends meet while tax cuts are handed to the super rich johnson led on bracks it whether you voted for leave or remain people want to get bricks it done and to unleash the potential of this entire country the questions ranged widely from bracks it to government austerity to personal integrity how can we trust you. thank the times the moderator struggle to keep the debate on topic and on time this is thank you to be interested in supporting the idea that this is quite interesting and i know you want to really get into practice it is the other thing but in the moment we are talking about the

n.h.s. on brics it a labor government would really go see it a new deal with the e.u. and then put it to a 2nd u.k. referendum johnson repeatedly demanded to know whether colvin will campaign for or against his own bracks a deal in that referendum but we don't know and i've asked this before we don't know which side mr corbyn would campaign is he going to campaign for leave can remain callen from the other direction called impress the prime minister on the future of the national health service and emphasise the point with a personal anecdote about a friend who'd recently died of cancer the nurses that were trying to help or were unable to get anyone to see her because they were under such strain and stress and so she recorded a video saying please in my memory make sure nobody else goes through this pain other opposition party leaders were excluded from the main debate and allocated a separate t.v. interview pro. graham the liberal democrats the scottish national party the greens and the party i would revoke article 50 something the prime minister has the power

to do and we do that on day one westminster governments can decide to import the direction of travel when pointers and policies that we don't want a point to us and therefore that really illustrates the importance of scotland to say don't for our sales what kind of country we want to be we really do need to transform our whole country in the next 10 years we know how to do it we just need to make sure we've got the well and the investment to make it happen the plan is to get some breaks it boyce's into the house of commons to hold boris johnson to his promises political commentators will wrangle over which leader came out on top from this debate but there are several more televised encounters still to come in this election campaign plenty of time for voters to make up their mind before december 12th paul brennan al-jazeera london israel remains in political deadlock with neither prime minister benjamin netanyahu nor his rival benny gantz able to cobble together a governing coalition against the still in the goes ations with other parties other

netanyahu failed earlier if dance also fail fall short israel could face a 3rd election in less than a year and israel's prime minister has fast track to a proposed law to annex the jordan valley comes after the us announced it no longer viewed israeli settlements in the occupied west bank as illegal palestinians condemn the move while the un and many individual governments have confirmed that they continue to consider settlements illegal and obstacle to peace and force it has more of me occupied west bank. a short drive south of jerusalem into the occupied west bank where the red roofs of the had shown certain been blocked for decades recognized as illegal by the international community including the united states. the morning after the u.s. reversed that stance benjamin netanyahu in the midst of a last ditch fight to stay in office made time to come here for a victory lap we now know here we are in a historic day with another huge achievement for the state of israel which we've

been working on quite a bit the trumpet ministration has blighted a historic bone here and stood with truth and justice i thank president from public and secretary of state pompei or my mad words so the settlements are not per se illegal under international law the u.s. secretary of state said the declaration improved prospects for peace between israelis and palestinians an idea rejected by the palestinian leadership official translation is that this land is not quite and this land is not a palestinian and that's consistent. with the idea called deal of the century or the next century because they don't see the palestinians as people they don't see us with rights of the technician shortly before september's election netanyahu said he would annex the jordan valley if he won another term in office he has yet to secure that term nonetheless on wednesday he approved the fast tracking of an

annexation bill or did reveal was among the settler leaders who met netanyahu he says the u.s. declaration could be seen as a signal of support for such a plan i see that as a potential leading to it definitely it might be an indication for the palestinians listen if you carry on missing opportunities there might be nothing left for you. for decades settlement construction has continued unabated no matter the u.s. or international definition of its legality just last month 2300 new housing units were approved this is a major reversal of u.s. foreign policy it's a breach of international consensus on the illegality of israeli settlement activity but for most israelis it's entirely uncontroversial support for settlements has only grown in recent years and that's why benjamin netanyahu is main political rival benny gantz has also supported the u.s. announcement. just hours left of his officially a lot of time to try to form a government after september's deadlocked election netanyahu is trying just as hard

to remain in office he's already using this latest u.s. announcement as part of his argument to stay on harry forsett al-jazeera in the occupied west bank 3 people have been killed in bolivia during a security operation to end the blockade of a major fuel plant by supporters of former president ever morale is there demanding the return of the leftist leader after he resigned earlier this month amid massive protests in iran as was accused of rigging october's presidential election our bahraini dissident has made a formal complaint to police in britain he says started behinds embassy tried to murder him by pushing him off the roof the ensuing reports of london. if the bahraini authorities harbored any hope that mussa mohammed's campaign against them was over then they were wrong because here he was at a police station in central london entering the formal complaint that staff working at their embassy in london had tried to murder him it was in late july that mohammed climbed up to the top of the embassy roof to protest against the imminent

executions of 2 anti government activists in the gulf states. footage from the ground shows him apparently being beaten with sticks on the edge of the roof he claims the diplomatic staff tried to push him off the roof and then out of view began the process of trying to kill him inside the embassy mohammed says at the point when the police forced entry to the embassy to calm the situation they saw him on the ground being assaulted. to help. and then i so i saw the police the cam on the for the claim and the 111. of the. officers came to me and said to me more say you are not you are you are safe now we are with you here all this footage is now in the hands of the police so to presumably the testimonies of the officers who my hermit says saved his life his

legal team say the meeting with the police went well and that they are determined to investigate it but they also know full well that embassy staff have diplomatic immunity which means they can be prosecuted and anyway if they disappeared off to bahrain that we almost no chance of getting them back the other thing they don't know is whether any one of the foreign office in london has asked the bahrain is what they were doing some had on the night in question i believe the british government at this is stage should be summoning they were having invested there and the question him about this this incident. which is supposed to be the response of. i don't recall any questions from the foreign office we expect them to take. very serious for the police the whole thing is something of a diplomatic minefield having offended the bahrain is by knocking down the door of the embassy they're now being asked to call for the prosecution of diplomatic staff

on charges of attempted murder the whole thing is as much political as it is criminal largely al-jazeera. to u.s. prison guards a pleaded not guilty to charges that they falsified prison records on the night jeffrey epstein killed himself over noel and michael thomas are accused of failing to perform checks every half hour and fabricating log entries to show they had epstein was found dead in his cell in august as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges now for a few months each year young chang lake in china bustled with activity for harry crab season the chinese delicacy has become so popular they've spawned counterfeits in the market from snowy reports from eastern china. has been working the waters of young town lake for more than 20 years he's one of thousands of crab thomas here autumn is harvest season for chinese mitten crabs also known as hairy crabs

a delicacy prized puts which grows so the humor i sleep on my houseboat every day and i have to keep our eye on the crops so they don't escape also how to look out for thieves. hairy crabs are also reared in surrounding lakes but it is farms from youngstown lake that are believed to produce the best ones to preserve the quality of the water the local government has limited the number of farms allowed on the lake. it has created a whole business channel restaurants logistics and tourism every year we see more tourists coming. to enjoy the crops which are of the highest quality the crabs as sold all of the china and exported overseas last year the output from this area was a 1600 tons but what was marketed and sold as harry crabs from young chang amounted to $20000.00 tons that's

a lot of fake young crabs out there the crab association here has taken measures to protect its famed progeny there's a cure our code on each tag and once you scan it a screen comes up giving you information as a statement confirming that the scribe is from young chang lake as a serial number there's even a phone number you can call to make sure the crab you've got is the real deal connoisseurs insist they can tell the difference between crabs raised in younger lake from the rest. the quality of crap from a young child lake is much better than crap from anywhere else their shelves are also thinner. there will be in the not all of it so that i don't eat craps from anywhere else other than a young lake to meet how does flavor and the role its reach or was in the you know the on the after being eating craps for a long time i can tell the difference they're more expensive but it's worth it.

as long as there are people willing to travel all the way here the genuine young gent harry crabs farm is like won't have to worry about competition from counterfeits florence lee al-jazeera young gent lake easton china. i talked a quick check of the headlines here on al-jazeera to senior white house officials that testified that president trump's july phone call with his ukrainian counterpart was unusual and inappropriate that and alexander than been and jennifer williams both listened in on the call and considered it to be inappropriate on july 21st $2900.00 present zelinsky won a parliamentary election in another landslide victory and he proposed that president trump call president is and it's good to congratulate him on july 25th 2900 the college heard i listened on the in on the call in the situation room with

white house colleagues i was concerned by the call what i heard was inappropriate and i reported my concerns to mr eisenberg it is improper for the president of the united states to demand a foreign government investigate a u.s. citizen and a political opponent testimony was also heard from former u.s. special envoy to ukraine kurt volker he said he didn't knowingly take part in efforts to investigate trump's rival joe biden but admitted he should have realized what was going on. in other news exhausted but defiant up to 100 protesters still inside a hong kong university campus are refusing orders to come out and surrender some of been trying to escape and avoid offices who surrounded the building the standoff began on sunday to some the most intense violence in more than 5 months of anti government protests israel says its fighter jets have launched attacks in syria the army says the warplanes hit positions of both syrian military targets and iran's

quds force in the early hours of wednesday morning syria says many of the rockets were shot down in a day earlier israel intercepted 4 rockets launched towards the occupied golan heights from syria. 3 ships that were seized in the red sea by yemen's who the rebels have now been released that's according to south korea to south korean ships the other from saudi arabia being held near the port city of the data the saudi government condemned the seizure as a terrorist organization that the who the said their actions were justified the rebels have targeted vessels of yemen in the past. so those are the headlines the news continues on al-jazeera after whose truth is again a way station that's watching but enough.

al-jazeera where every. day. to it. my name is mona taliban and i'm a data journalist my job is to find numbers in all sorts of different places and then turn them into images that people will understand and connect to. i always try to think of ways to connect the subject matter with the visualisation itself so that people can automatically see what the data visualisation is all about. if it's about me copies being fined in france outdrawn acaba.