did you two. stories march. on t w. visited every news line from palin donald trump's former attorney gives congress a damning indictment of the us president. he's a racist. he's a con man. and he used. to unleash is a torrent of allegations the white house says michael cohen is a lying also on the program friends parliament votes on a series of amendments to president legislation and pays back commission for the

government to ask for added leg of the tent that britain leaves the end of the european union if necessary. and another thirty scandal hits the sporting world plays in austria and germany make arrests in the sport of nordic ski. i'm phil gale welcome to the program. donald trump's former fix and personal lawyer has made a string of explosive allegations about the us president michael cohen told a congressional committee that mr trump had prior knowledge of leaked e-mails from the democratic party during the twenty sixteen presidential campaign he also said mr trump instructed him to break campaign finance laws mr cohen said at the beginning of the process. not being ladies and gentleman the

days of this committee for taking the president at all caught over. the democratic controlled house flexed its muscle with michael cohen's live testimony and they couldn't have chosen a more colorful witness to kick off their public oversight hearings i am ashamed because i know what mr trump is he is a racist he is a con man and he is a cheat cohen was president trump's personal lawyer for a decade before he was caught up in the probe of russian interference in the twenty sixteen presidential election he was called to capitol hill to testify on possible criminal conduct by the president and his inner circle including his son in law son and campaign manager related to the election and beyond cohen said the president had directed him to break campaign finance laws with hush money payments to porn star stormy daniels. i am providing a copy of

a thirty five thousand dollars check that president trump personally signed from his personal bank account on august first of twenty seventeen when he was president of the united states pursuant to the coverup which was the basis of my guilty plea to reimburse me cohen also painted a portrait of a candidate who encouraged associates to do anything to get him elected that included communicating with wiki leaks about e-mails stolen from his opponent hillary clinton and stone told mr trump that he had just gotten off the phone with julian a song and that mr stange told mr stone that within a couple of days there would be a massive dump of e-mails that would damage hillary clinton's campaign. mr trump responded by stating to the effect without the great drums personal

financial cohen provided no smoking gun of the trump campaign's collusion with russia he suspects it he said but he has no concrete evidence but if wednesday's hearing is any indication the rest of the trump presidency will be dogged by inquiries as congressional democrats expand their investigation of the president's business and political affairs ice skate more on this unfolding drama from d.w. correspondent to helen humphrey in the washington she's been following the hearing welcome how significant is this testimony. well people here in the united states have been glued to their television sets bars here in the capital i've been open since ten am for hearing watch parties this does feel like a moment of history people who are old enough to remember during parallels to another presidential lawyer john dean in his testimony back in one nine hundred seventy three during the watergate scandal and his testimony was the turning point

in that investigation a year later richard nixon then resigned from the presidency so why is mr cohen's testimony today so explosive well i think it's fair to say it's not the character assassination or the mudslinging which has been going on for the past couple of years is those three big accusations that he leveled out against the president namely for example that he was aware of the wiki leaks dump of e-mails against the democrats in twenty sixteen and when it comes to russia trump was still engaged in negotiations or at least conversations about the trump tower moscow project when he was also running for office he was also alleged to be at least to know about a meeting between his son donald jr and russian connections at the trump tower in manhattan and thirdly of course those hush money payments to stormy daniels the adult film actress although we knew that they did did take place what we hadn't yet

heard in terms of analysis allegation from mr cohen was that that check reimbursement to him to the tune of thirty five thousand dollars was written when mr trump was already in office in august twenty seventeen or less until the super reaction to all this. a range of reaction online as you would expect ranging from people saying that mr cohen essentially now is a puppet of the democrats other people saying that this is so explosive that this is the beginning of impeachment proceedings there's another social media sideshow going on as well regarding much gates the representative from florida for the republicans last night he tweeted that mr cohen saying is your family aware of your gulf friends where your wife remain faithful she while still behind bars earning him some stinging rebuke and accusations of witness intimidation a telling off from house speaker nancy pelosi we now understand the juice of those

comments he's due to be investigated by the florida bar council and president may be a world away in vietnam at that summit but we believe we understand rather that he cheated into some of that testimony and he's just reach we've had one of his earlier tweets we can take a look at that now in which he said that michael cohen was one of my lawyers who represented me brackets unfortunately he had other clients also he was just espoused by the state supreme court for lying and fraud he did bad things unrelated to trump he is lying in order to reduce his prison time using current kids a lawyer and of course yes he is going to prison for three years but it's understood that that sentence has already been set and certainly one would imagine that cohen wouldn't want to respond. to sentence by lying again today but of course there will be questions about his credibility as a witness and briefly which of these allegations is the most damaging.

at the moment these allegations all relate to reputational damage a lot of interest of course in the russia allegations that you need hard evidence to back that expectations that the motor investigation should set up some more of that put some meat on the bones or so another piece of testimony that piqued my interest at least was a mystic open saying that he was fully aware of all the illegality committed by mr truong which is currently being investigated by the southern district court of new york so potentially we will learn more about that in the future in the next gripping episode have a humphrey thank you. for a second summit between us president donald trump north korean's leader kim jong un is underway the two met for a short time wednesday evening although the talks are due in the morning but mr trump wants to push mr came to give up his nuclear weapons program in exchange for economic development which had the two leaders that had dinner together at the match from hotel in the vietnamese capital one knowing the talks come eight months

after sturrock summit in singapore the first between a sitting u.s. president and a north korean leader. to reduce our example phenomenon has of following the talks in high knowing the his her assessment. on the first day of their summit donald trump and kim jong on were all smiles and pleasantries the u.s. president we appeared to please trust his good relationship with the north korean leader referring to the brutal dictator as my friend he seems to be hopeful that there are personal poor can bridge gaps in negotiations on thursday the talks will continue the u.s. is seeking the chilled commitments from pyongyang to dismantle at least some of its nuclear facilities while kim's regime wants relief from punishing economic sanctions the challenge will be to turn the apparent good chemistry between the two

leaders into a concrete agreement both sides are happy with. alexander phenomena in hanoi now to some of the other stories making news around the world in nigeria president bihari has defended his victory in the weekend's vote the country's electoral commission declared the result on wednesday saying that he had won by a comfortable margin says the election was rigged and plans to challenge the result in court. spain's former prime minister mariano rajoy has appeared in court as a witness in the trial of twelve separatist leaders i he said the politicians have knowingly created a dangerous situation and with their failed twenty seventeen independence bed he defended his decision to crack down on the separatist movement the trial continues . in german city of reagan's book they are jewish community celebrating the opening of a new cynical building stands on the same site as when the burned down eighty years

ago during the night of attacks and senegal's and jewish shops across the nazi germany jewish community in breaking has grown in recent years and now numbers about a thousand. british lawmakers have approved a series of measures that could result in a delay to bret's and beyond the current march twenty ninth deadline m.p.'s voted to approve prime minister recep may's new plan from the from the european union it includes an option for parliament to vote on extending the current president life but mrs ray says that is not her preferred outcome the vote gives the prime minister more time to renegotiate an agreement with e.u. leaders. i did abuse up to get mass has been covering the action at westminster and has this update. what we know after a couple of days of drama here in westminster is this the reason may is still hoping that she will get had you through she still negotiating with brussels hoping

to find a compromise that would be palatable to her in the house of commons in maximum two weeks' time she will present a new deal to palm and but if parliament once again rejects that deal then she will give parliamentarians the opportunity to vote for an extension of article fifty meaning that she will then go to the european union and ask for article fifty to be extended maximum three months time so the cliff that's now at the end of march then be extended would then be moved towards the summer. however any delay to president would require the approval of the remaining twenty seven e.u. member states german chancellor angela merkel says she's open to delay but not to bring the. deal and she was in paris meeting french president emanuel. would need to present a reason for requesting a deal like you. know the doping scandal has hit the sporting world this time

nordic skiing is under scrutiny after police made arrests in germany and austria the rate of focus is focused in part on the town of say found in austria where the nordic ski world championships are taking place. a house used to peace and quiet in the austrian alps is now at the center of a police bust here police arrested seven people among them five athletes. austrian police are working together with german authorities in a sting centered on an international doping ring whose backers are believed to come from germany. and start the motor of the munich public prosecutor is bringing charges against four german citizens on suspicion of using doping methods for a bit and by the anti doping law. the athletes are alleged to have practiced blood doping which involves blood being removed from the body and later reinjected shortly before competition boosting delivery of oxygen to cells police say on

wednesday they caught two austrian athletes red handed or thorazine is their say the doping network originated in germany they believe it operates around the world . at the same time as the bust in austria police in germany searched nine buildings in the town of effort including the practice of sports medicine specialist mark s. he was arrested along with an assistant police believe he is a leading figure in the doping network. most places consider rats to be vermin but the town of bennett's time in the german state of hess takes a few times where a sewer rat that put on some weight over the winter got us all stuck in a manhole going back no going forwards concerned citizens to call the volunteer volunteer fire brigade seven firefighters. well it's really. scary back without suffering any. good.

thank you this is state of the news life and business in just a moment with. banks in the british capital of moving their headquarters to the european we'll take a look at some of the major financial institutions on the move. so for. the law to the local hot story on the wall today stuff business side headlocks i myself attacks. me take it personally. with all the wonderful people and stories that make the game so special. for all true fans follow such a little play golf more than football longline. and jam and live. at any time i'm going anyplace.