To compensate them for their efforts. Along william blue cross welcome to the program the Ukrainian Government and russian backed separatists have completed a Prisoner Exchange the swap took place at a checkpoint near the rebel held city of horlivka in the Donetsk Region of Eastern Ukraine the exchange covers all remaining prisoners being held by both sides since hostilities broke out in 2014 it stems from an agreement that russia and ukraine reached earlier this month. Have carefully coordinated ron davis in ukraines rebel controlled region. Prisoners include ukrainian riot police accused of firing on protesters in 2014 the controversial swap has angered some activists there but others see it as a crucial step to improving ties with moscow. Its the 2nd major Prisoner Exchange this year september saw another swap that brought inmates home and fostered hope that the war in Eastern Ukraine could soon be over an early victory for ukraines new president. We have agreed the 1st step to one block. Or not it is returning our soldiers political prisoners. For more than 5 years the Ukrainian Army has been fighting russian back separatists in the countrys east the war has cost around 14000 lives and turned a key industrial region into a conflict zone efforts to stop the fighting have so far come to little when selinski was elected in april he promised to restart the Peace Process that culminated in a meeting this month with his french german and russian counterparts in which sundays exchange was agrees. An exchange between both sides in this conflict based on swapping everyone on. The deal is again raising hopes 1st swift resolution to the conflict but major hurdles between russia and ukraine still need to be overcome before peace is possible. Correspondent david stern is at the airport in kiev where the freedom training prisoners are due to arrive soon david what do we know any details yet on the prisoners who is being exchanged who are they. Will were as you say were at the airport with the key of journalists gathered outside a Security Check waiting to go into the terminal behind me here where the we are expecting that the prisoners the people have been released will be arriving we dont know when possibly within the next hour or couple of hours its difficult to say now we do know is that over 70 have been returned to the government controlled territory over 120 were given to the moscow back separatists there were among them there were who are coming back now there are civilians as well as military personnel and as we heard in. In the report there were 5 there coote riot police is the name of the unit they were accused of participating in the in the deaths are being involved in the deaths of protesters 5 years ago during the revolution in kiev so in light of that of the people the exchange what kind of reactions are being in ukraine is this being considered a success for president selenski. Will any and all of these Prisoner Exchange in his we know there have been previous ones are greeted with a mixture of relief fanfare and a flat out joy how this will translate for support or or believe in president selenski remains to be seen obviously this is a positive step although it is it will be determined how big of a positive step because obviously the peace talks are continuing and as weve heard the fighting is continuing so there still remains to be a lot to be done before we actually see a full peace in the east and go into that in some more detail for us what what are those next steps where does this Prisoner Exchange fit into a larger easing of tensions between russia and ukraine. One hopes so there can be a general cease fire still were seeing fighting theres been fighting just recently deaths and. Casualties occur regularly what were hoping for is what is being discussed is the is the overall Peace Agreement and this a lot of this depends on the timings of questions of when there will be elections and whether this will take place before or after ukraine receives full control over its its eastern border with russia and this seems to be very much the. Hurdle that theyre that theyre encountering at the moment david stern in kiev thank you very much. And now lets take a look at some of the other stories making news around the world have least 10 people were killed when a missile hit a military parade in a town in southern yemen the ceremony for new recruits was being held by a south yemen separatist group a spokesman blamed the rebels for the attack. More than a 1000 demonstrators have gathered in hong kong to mark a turbulent year in the semi autonomous region protests began in june over a proposed extradition law grew to include demands for more democracy protesters say beijing and the local government are eroding freedom and democracy. A german rescue ship has docked in sicily after rescuing more than 30 migrants in the mediterranean island turkey vessel reached the southern port of. Sunday the migrants were picked up off the libyan coast last week. To the u. S. Now where the jewish festival of lights turned into a bloody attack late saturday night a man with a knife barged into a rabbis home outside new york city where people were gathered to celebrate hanukkah the stabbing rampage sent 5 people to the hospital 2 are in Critical ConditionPolice Arrested a suspect shortly thereafter its just the latest in a recent string of suspected antisemitic incidents in new york now with us for more on this story is g. O. P. Reporter for him a a whats whats the latest so just to give the viewers a bit of context this attack happened in Rockland County this is a collection of town northwest of new york city it has a large Jewish Population 31 percent of the population there is jewish and in recent years it has seen a surge or an uptick in the population of hasidic jews as families are being priced out of places like queens and brooklyn in new york city because of the ongoing gentrification of the city so 10 pm a man enters a home stabbed. People in there the man in question has been identified and arrested as grafton each thomas 37 years old and she will face 5 counts of attempted murder and one count of armed burglary this has been designated as a domestic terror attack by new York Governor Andrew Cuomo a very horrific harrowing night for the people inside the house no doubt so lets take a listen at one of the eyewitnesses who was there i saw him walking by the door. I ask who is coming in the middle of the night with. Well i was saying that he pulled it out from the think and he started to run into the big room which was on the left side and i throw a table secure that he should get out of here and the guy was a cadre a rest guy. He was leaving here bleeding in his hand all over iran new to the other room because it tried to save my life i saw him running down this way so i ran out to a lady. Came along with me they still terrible what time is not only with no downtime no and they still staring right now. Member of the community how is the Community Officials there how are they responding so it seemed that the community is trying its best to keep the spirits up now the rabbi his congregation is actually was actually right next door to his house so this actually could have been much much worse but right after the rabbi then headed to the congregation and continued celebrating. The holiday with the people there thats on the what have but of course the community has very concrete demands as to how this situation can be avoided in the future the Orthodox JewishPublic Affairs council through its twitter page has called on authorities to step up security around their homes and their places of worship. They suffer from a lack of resources as it as it seems according to the community but they also want to see concrete consequences to the people that are behind these attacks so they want to see a list of you know these people that do these things where do they end up jail sentences so that you know nobody would be motivated do such a thing of course the attack drew widespread condemnation the Prime Minister of israel Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to help local authorities in any way possible to defeat this phenomenon the phenomenon being of course anti semitic. Attacks the man in question was arrested in new york city and we do have a response from new york mayor bill de blasio he tweeted we will not allow this to become the new normal well use every tool we have to stop these attacks once and for all the n. Y. P. D. Has deployed a visible and growing presence around the jewish houses of worship on the streets in communities like williamsburg Crown Heights and bora park and these are of course communities that do have a sizable hasidic Jewish Population in new york city right and he says theyre going to do Everything Possible to not make this new normal but it is a new normal in some way i mean speak to that larger phenomenon here indeed i mean this is just the latest in a string of view. Very very disturbing attacks on the Jewish Population in new york just last month a man with stabbed while walking to a synagogue in the same town where this attack happened. Theres a you know theres been a an uptick in the past week new york city just new york city. Has received at least 6 reports of attacks possibly motivated by an anti jewish bias and just earlier this month in jersey city very close to where the attack happened 2 shooters opened fire on a kosher market 6 people were killed 3 of whom were market goers so certainly its seems like a phenomenon and something needs to be done about it abraham thank you for bringing us these details. Now australia is bracing for another week of bushfires as temperatures are expected to soar firefighters have been trying to contain the fires since september and people have died 2 of them firefighters many of those on the front line are volunteers and now the government says it will pay them for their efforts. Its one of australias worst bushfire seasons ever. With so many blazes to battle its often volunteers who answer the call for help. Giving their time and paying the costs slice of. The 56 day. Youre exhausted at the end of that you might have one day break and then they want you to go again. It just takes a toll physically. Emotionally on the family they dont see you and me it means i use manual labor. You know i use my time in lead time. Now theres help for the helpers some volunteers to be called been sated for about 20 days worth of income lost while fighting the recent fires. As this very prolonged for us this is putting additional demands on our firefighters in particular and it means that the turnouts in the call outs have been far more extensive than in previous years going well and beyond and above what is normally expected of those who are engaged in volunteer service and. Already Public Servants have been pledged additional leave to join the fight. With a straight is some of just Getting Started the country needs more helping hands to step up to the challenge. Some sports news now and in the german football bonus league 4th place dortmund have signed one of the most sought after forwards in europe its the 19 year old norwegian holland. Hollande has been playing with the austrian club. He has scored 16 league goals this term and netted 8 goals in the Champions League group stages 2nd only to robert lewandowski. Dont forget you can always get on the go just download our app from google play or the Apple App Store that will give you access to all the latest news from around the world as well as pushed out of occasions for any breaking news you can also use the dean of us to send us photos and videos from where you are. Watching t w news from berlin coming up next world stories of the week in reports and dont forget you can always stay up to date from our web site thats dot com or follow us on twitter at u w news more news at the top of the hour thanks from. Earth. Home to use of species. Own words if you can. Get those are big changes and most start with small steps to. Do those 2 stories of creative people into innovative projects around the world. Like to use the country to turn it loose to Green Energy Solutions and reforestation. To