The dalai lama. Another day of violence in hong kong most schools and universities remain closed across the territory and far as small have all the sport needs including a former teammate of collin kaplan a believes the blacklisted quarterbacks coming n. F. L. I just feel frank a p. R. Stunt. Rockets have been fired from gaza into israel hours after a cease fire was agreed this would appear violated a truce struck earlier between israel and Islamic Jihad 34. 00 palestinians have been killed in israeli airstrikes the escalation began after the israeli army assassinated a Senior Leader of the group on tuesday well earlier Islamic Jihad spokesman gave specific details about what had been agreed in the ceasefire for the not a month or so. It went into effect on the ground at 5 am with Islamic Jihad conditions on behalf of the Palestinian Resistance factions dealing clue to the occupation submission to conditions which is to stop the assess the nations protecting the protesters at the much of her turns demonstrations and to begin practically the procedures to break the siege of gaza this is guaranteed by the presence of resistance in the field and its really nice to respond to any aggressions in the future and also the continuation of the egyptian role at the political level. Correspondent harry force it again on the border between israel and gaza harry is the ceasefire generally holding. It has for the 1st 4 or 5 hours it has for it seems for the last hour or so but an hour ago as you say there were these 5 according to Israeli Military 5 rockets fired from gaza towards the neighboring israeli areas in the north it says that 3 of them fell and 2 of them were intercepted by the anti missile and dome system so this does quite frequently happen when a cease fire is reached that there will be some infringements of it for some time so its not a sign that the cease fire is entirely broken down but it is a sign of the fragility of it and thats something that the u. N. Envoy nicolo not enough was warning of before this happened saying that the u. N. And egypt had worked very hard to arrange this ceasefire but saying that the coming hours and days would be crucial and urging everybody to exercise the maximum amount of restraint there are separate messages coming from Islamic Jihad and the israelis as i mean how does you just heard in that sound bite saying that it is it is secured an agreement from israel not to target Senior Leadership and not to fire on protesters at the weekly friday border protests israels foreign minister was interviewed earlier and he said that neither of those things were true that they would continue to target whoever they deemed a threat to his radio security notable also that israel has continued its policy of separating out Islamic Jihad from hamas this ceasefire came into effect with house offering verbal support but not joining in with this big barrels of rockets that weve seen for the last couple of days and also important to note is the death toll its gone up to 34 including in one strike on one house in central gaza a man his wife his sister and 5 children all killed the Israeli Army Says that he was a Senior Commander of Islamic Jihad. Thanks very much. At least 2 people have been killed in the iraqi capital baghdad during antigovernment protests 35 others were injured many of those hurt choked on tear gas or they were hit by rubber bullets more than 300 people have been killed since the beginning of last month protesters want a complete overhaul of the political system our correspondent mohammed jump jhoom is live for us in baghdad mohammed what happened here when these 2 people lost their lives. Peter were told that this violence occurred in a square that is close to the area where to where your square is the height of course is the epicenter of the antigovernment demonstrations that have been going on for weeks in both dead this is another square where protesters continue to gather its been the scene of violence repeatedly the last few weeks and it is an area where Security Forces have put up concrete barriers so that these demonstrators cannot get access to the bridges in that area that lead to parts of the where there are Government Installations where there is the green zone where there are other government buildings so what basically the cycle of violence that we see happening is these demonstrators gather in the square they try then to either climb over the wall or get around those concrete barriers then the Security Forces try to push them back they utilize sometimes live fire sometimes tear gas to try to disperse the crowds because they want to push them back to 3 or square which is the only part of the city Security Forces have said protesters are allowed to demonstrate certainly this shows that tensions continue to rise sporadically throughout the day here in the dad its very different in the areas around to where square is and it is entire square where at times the mood becomes festive jubilant very vibrant with the protesters that are there now all this being said you also have to configure that there has been a lot of talk about the politics surrounding this crisis that is going on in iraq right now you had a session of Parliament Yesterday in which the head of the United Nations mission in iraq went because they were trying to mediate what is going on here to try to come up with a solution to make sure the protesters get their demands met and the government responds to those protesters demands that Electoral Reform is implemented weve heard a lot of talk nothing concrete has happened as far as the Electoral Reforms the government keeps speaking about there was a draft of this law that was completed by the president s office a few days ago that was sent to the cabinet. The cabinet has since passed it on to the head of parliament we dont know yet when parliament will take up the issue but nonetheless even though we hear this rhetoric about reform from the government the past several weeks the protesters we continue to speak with they say theyre going to continue to come out because they do not believe the government is being truthful about really trying to meet their demands peter lama thanks very much till she later. Plenty more still to come for you here on the news hour including weve just heard about the demonstrations in iraq later in this program well find out what older iraq is a doing to support the young protesters. The u. S. Reveals its position on pacificas new government so supporters of the formally to intensify their demonstrations and the sports news drop that altitude such a stunning victory to peoples hopes alive when the sun is now 21 for the 1st time. A u. S. Ambassador has described how President Donald Trump put pressure on ukraine to investigate his political rival joe by William Taylor was one of 2 diplomats to appear in the 1st public hearings of the sense of the impeachment inquiry into mr trump how to do castro is in washington the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god William Taylor and george kent took the stand together at the 1st public hearing in the impeachment inquiry career foreign officers called by democrats to tell a compelling story to the American Public taylor is the acting u. S. Ambassador to ukraine who upon assuming the post in june found himself dropped in the middle of a mystery once i arrived in cave i discovered a weird combination of encouraging confusing and ultimately alarming circumstances taylor had begrudgingly agreed to come out of retirement to take over the u. S. Diplomatic mission at a critical time his predecessor maria had been ousted without explanation and President Trumps personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani was meeting with ukraine officials to discuss debunked corruption allegations against political rivals that had taylor worried and countered an irregular informal channel of u. S. Policy making with respect to ukraine. Unaccountable to Congress Taylor began asking questions and learned the informal channel was aimed at getting ukraine to investigate joe biden trumps potential opponent in the upcoming president ial election taylor says career diplomats were sidelined as trumps shows and aides pressed ukraine to publicly announce a biden investigation george kent a state department expert on ukraine says giuliani was getting more involved in u. S. Relations with kiev it became clear to me that giulianis efforts to gin up politically motivated investigations were now infecting u. S. Engagement with ukraine leveraging president selenski is desire for a white house meeting but there was more ambassador taylor says he had a clear understanding that u. S. Security aid to ukraine worth 400000000 dollars was also on the line the money was essential for ukraine to fend off russias military advances to withhold that systems for no good reason other than help with the Political Campaign made no sense it was it was counterproductive to all of what we had been trying to do. It was illogical it could not be explained it was crazy multiple witnesses have corroborated taylors testimony much of the facts are uncontested but there is a critical factor still missing from the democrats argument to impeach President Trump and that is evidence that trump was directly involved and therefore to be blamed the closest democrats have come is a july phone call between trump and the president of ukraine a lot of years olinsky tells trump his countrys ready to buy more weapons from the us for defense purposes trump sansar i would like you to do us a favor though then ask for investigations into democrats and the bidens this is extortion this is bribery and in any other instance. People would go to jail for sure trump says hes innocent and republicans are stunned defending him but anyone from millionaire the democrat scorched earth war against President Trump would not be surprised to see all the typical signs that this is a carefully orchestrated Media Smear Campaign prior to the start of the public hearings americans were about evenly divided on whether to impeach trump and remove him from office now that theyre hearing directly from witnesses all eyes are on whether the publics opinion will change. Castro aljazeera washington. Well President Trump has once again said the house impeachment inquiry against him is a witch hunts he made the comments during a meeting with the turkish president the one at the white house can really help it as this report will come to order as americans watched the 1st public hearings over the impeachment of the u. S. President one person said he wasnt paying attention youre talking about the witch hunt is that what you mean is that what youre talking about i think i hear its a joke i havent watched but President Trumps own twitter feed suggested the opposite sending out a number of messages during the hearings that lasted all day still trumpeted promise to release the transcript of a 2nd phone call with ukrainian president vladimir is alecky and youll make a determination as to what you think theyre the release of the 1st transcript of a call in july in which trop asked for a favor from the lecky is now the basis for the house impeachment inquiry a top diplomat testified on capitol hill on wednesday the trump wanted to withhold Security Assistance to Ukraine Exchange for an investigation into a political rival former Vice President joe biden trump also responded to reports he pressed another top diplomat about the investigations into biden just a day after that july phone call for more but i know nothing about that 1st time ive heard it although President Trump wants the impeachment inquiry to go away his campaign is using it to raise money an email to supporters to call the hearings not just an attack on President Trump but on americans the goal to raise 3000000. 00 from just the 1st day of public hearings kimberly held at aljazeera the white house lets bring in skulk lucas professor of International Politics at the university of birmingham in the u. K. Scott welcome back to the news that testimony very detailed unpack it for us. The fundamental is that beyond the trump zelinsky phone call that started this investigation is that William Taylor the top u. S. Diplomat ukraine and george kent the state Department Official in charge of the country detail a campaign by donald trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani going back to the start of this year to pressure ukraine to get investigations of the democratic president ial candidate joe biden of the Democratic Party and to cover up russias interference in the 2016 u. S. Election they say that this campaign led by giuliani amounted to an irregular u. S. Foreign policy and indeed they said i think in the most damning testimony that this compromised u. S. Foreign policy for trumped personal political gain how far did it go well george cant set it led to the attempt to smear and undermine the u. S. Ambassador in ukraine where you have on of edge who was removed in may and then William Taylor revealed that donald trump personally intervened to say that his phrasing of military aid to ukraine almost 400000000. 00 in july and any request for a visit to the white house by the ukrainian president lot of resentment ski was conditional upon ukraine announcing these investigations into trance political rivals can the republicans from here on in today will be day 2 when they kick off washington time commit confront the evidence head on and if they cant what will they try to do instead of doing that. Well they certainly didnt try to confront the evidence head on and i dont think they will instead and we know this from a memo that was released the day before the hearings they have a plan coordinated with the white house which is one to undermine the credibility of the witnesses to try to call them radical on elected bureaucrats who are passing on 2nd 3rd hand information even though the witnesses who were to calm as well as the ambassadors yesterday are 1st hand witnesses of what occurred secondly they will try to divert theyll say oh what about the identity of the whistleblower what about him even though that cia officer his account has been corroborated now by more than a dozen witnesses whose names we now know and thirdly they will try to deny distorting the evidence that there was any link between Donald Trumps cut off of foreign aid and his demand and in effect was a demand for an investigation of joe biden when it comes to the people at the white house who must be im assuming he configuring what we will see as Donald Trumps reaction to this where do they go with this because he cant spend the next several weeks or several months going well im not watching it im not engaged and then hes on twitter about it several times an hour. Well what was interesting yesterday is is that white house staff took over Donald Trumps twitter feed while he was meeting president on one of turkey they were retreating material from the White House Communications director danske of you know all about how the democrats are awful all about how theres nothing to see here all about how boring the hearings on and thats what theyll continue to do because i think your correspondent has it wrong i dont think this is you know all i should be on Public Opinion i think all i should be on the u. S. Constitution of the us system but i think she has it right in that the white house tactics are get the public to focus on anything except the evidence get them to believe that this is a coup against the president by these socalled radicals who in fact are not radicals and maybe maybe by throwing up that smokescreen they can escape ok for the people who will ultimately vote on whether this goes to impeachment beyond an impeachment inquiry who just rewind a little bit when you were saying earlier to us that sure what they were talking about was allegedly irregular irregular is not illegal but it might be illegal or it might deemed to have been illegal depending upon the opinion as a reaction from different republicans specifically republicans who are watching whats going on. 1st of all the factual basis as William Taylor said yesterday you can have an irregular channel in Foreign Policy to conduct diplomacy but this was an irregular channel not to try to get a diplomatic and it was an irregular channel that one served a personal political purpose Donald Trumps and to undermine u. S. Foreign policy because it jeopardize Ukrainian Security now will republicans in the senate buy that and break away from trot the received wisdom is no but look at this almost all the defense of troops so far has come from republicans in the house all but 3 of the 53 republicans in the senate have said no comment or been very quiet abo