Bombings plus. The outrage. Anger across iran as the government types fuel prices by 50 percent and. My. Prayer is bringing home a course in the u. S. Orders a retrial for a black man on death row for killing a white woman 22 years ago. We begin in the u. S. For President Donald Trump is facing accusations of intimidation after attacking the latest impeachment witness on twitter as she testified before congress on friday many of out of it was the u. S. Ambassador to ukraine until she was recalled earlier this year the inquiry is looking into whether trump withheld military aid to ukraine. In exchange for a promise of an inquiry against his political rivals but coleman aljazeera castro has more from capitol hill. President trump has said he too busy to watch the impeachment inquiry hearings threatening to end his presidency but he found time friday to catch some of the hearing unfolding on live t. V. And he tweeted about the witness on the stand his former ambassador to ukraine a woman he ousted from the post as we sit here testifying the president is attacking you or twitter. And id like to give you a chance to respond read part of one of his tweets everywhere maria on average when it turned bad but would you like to respond to the president s attack that everywhere you went turned bad i mean i cant speak to what the president is trying to do but i think the effect is to be intimidating you vonnegut is a career diplomat who served more than 30 years under president s of both parties in a july phone call the basis for the current impeachment inquiry trying to told the president of ukraine she was quote bad news and would go through some things it was it was a terrible moment a person who saw me actually reading the transcript said that the color drained from my face i think i even had a physical reaction it didnt sound good sounded like. A threat democrats say trumps attacks on you of on a bitch amounts to witness intimidation and possibly an additional impeachment charge against the President Trump defended his mid hearing tweet saying he had no intention to intimidate i have the right to speak i have freedom of speech just as other people do but theyve taken away the republicans rights given of each testified she was recalled from ukraine without cause in may shed been drunk fully accused of undermining trump she said and was the target of a Smear Campaign conspired between trumps private attorney Rudy Giuliani and corrupt ukrainian officials or continues to amaze me is that they found americans willing to partner with them and working together they apparently succeeded in orchestrating the removal of a Us Ambassador you gonna bitch says she still doesnt know why she was ordered home on the next plane she was gone by the time the white house pros security aid to ukraine and trump pressed the ukrainian president to announce investigations into his political rivals republicans say democrats have been unable to directly tie trump to an Impeachable Offense the problem of trying to overthrow a president based on this type of evidence is obvious but thats what their whole case relies on the game with 2nd and 3rd hand information but now complicating the president s defense is this new evidence of possible witness intimidation in the form of trumps tweet that materialize before the publics very eyes democrats have tried to build up a review of on of it as a sympathetic witness and now trump himself may have helped them make that case while putting his own presidency in greater jeopardy heidi joe castro aljazeera washington. Well more closed door testimony from the inquiry is a marching u. S. Embassy official says he overheard a phone call between trump and the American Ambassador to the e. U. She had returns and has more on that from washington d. C. David holmes as he accompanied us as u. S. Ambassador gordon some of them to a lunch following someones meetings with various ukrainian officials including the president and then skin during that loves someone decided to phone donald trump on his cell phone to update him on how things were going and dont trouble speaking so loudly holmes says that he could actually hear dog trumps end of the conversation and he heard from immediately are so are they going to do the investigations and someone said yes theyll do anything for you that they love you words to that effect and as far as holmes is concerned what they were talking about was the investigations into joe biden and his own home to biden and on to bidens business dealings with an allegedly corrupt energy firm after that conversation there holmes took the opportunity to ask someone so i just dont really care about ukraine or words to that effect and someone said well he cares about the big stuff so firms are small big stuff i mean like the war with russia and so on and said no is really concerned about is the investigation into the bidens and what complete eclipse benefit him. In some ways this isnt new we already knew the donald trump had asked the lenski to open an investigation in to buy them from the july transcript or partial transcript of the phone call but it does add then to how involved the trump was in trying to get selenski to open an investigation into the bias in how involved he was into whatever someone and Rudy Giuliani were up to in ukraine despite Donald Trumps constant. Stations that there was no quid pro quo months ago theres no quid pro quo on this on this phone call but it adds to that impression certainly from those around in the administration by terms that as far as they were concerned they came to the conclusion that there was some sort of quid pro quo about one thing and also certain about golden someones testimony on wednesday the current basta more interesting because he did mention it in his last 2 appearances in congress there is yet another thing he may have to be have to remember and he may be in some some trouble as a result meanwhile a former advisor to the us president has been found guilty of 7 offenses including lying to congress and witness tampering roger stone was charged earlier this year during the investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election hes been found guilty of lying to congress about his contacts with wiki leaks joining the election antecessor its to push one of his associates to back up his lies hell be sentenced in february possible hayne has the latest. It didnt take the jury long just about 7 hours to find roger stone guilty of all 7 counts obstructing official investigation lying to congress intimidating a witness basically this goes back to the election during the elections dont put out messages on social media that something was going to come with what you well then wiki leaks started with leasing emails that were half from the Democratic Party the Intelligence Community now believes that that was done by Russian Hackers so congress as part of their investigation into potential interference called stone and he said it wasnt me it was this other guy theres no evidence that i was coordinating between wiki leaks and the Trump Campaign for the prosecution brought out texts and emails of witnesses they said in fact he was trying to get information from wiki leaks and he was conveying that to the Campaign Including up to then candidate donald trump the most serious charge here is the potential of intimidating a witness there this witness had messages from stone where he quoted the godfather movie about the mafia and threatened to get rid of the mans dog so now what happens well in february stone will be sentenced he faces up to 50 years in prison but the way federal guidelines work it likely face much less time than that of course no stones going to be looking for his longtime friend and associate donald trump to give him a pardon right now hes probably his best bet to stay out of prison israel says its carried out more airstrikes in response to rocket fire from gaza its just turned 6 am there in these pictures. Were farts towards beersheba. More dont suppose a cease fire with. Islamic. Truce. Before. The story comes in. Lets head to asia now and gunmen in sri lanka have fired on buses carrying muslim voters but no casualties have been reported it happened shortly after polls opens in the president ial election there ethnic tensions have been high since the Easter Sunday bombings former strong can defense minister go to buy rajapaksa is being challenged by a minister in the current government so this. One has got more on this now from Bernard Smith hes live for us in colombo a burner at the polls are now open of course but the voting spin that somewhat overshadowed by these a gun attacks what morkie tell us. All of this was an attack overnight on a convoy all around 100 buses carrying muslim and tunnel voters whove been displaced by the civil war from where they live now to where they were originally registered to vote we understand shots were fired stones were thrown at this convoy an attempt to make some sort of roadblock was made but nobody was injured in the convoy carried all i have to say compared to sri lanka elections in the past this is actually a pretty calm and Peaceful Election Campaign that hasnt been a lot of reports of votes on to me to intimidation although this clearly was an example of it overnight nevertheless as i say those people able to go on to vote what will it turn to that force itself no burners weve got some 35 candidates in this election but in effect its all really coming down to 2 men is it not. Yes down to gazza by rajapaksa and such if premadasa got supply rajapakse he is was a former defense minister towards the end of the civil war in ounces candidacy in the wake of these to sundays suicide bombings that killed 263 people and he announced his candidacy promising to return security to sri lanka so its thats events that has really dominated this Election Campaign premadasa on the other side he also of course has talked about security he is though the candidates supported by the Ruling Coalition he says hes promising Free School Uniforms promising improves in education as well as security but hes got an uphill struggle because hes connected to the ruling government which is which is was found to fail so miserably in terms of rio responding to intelligence reports that warned of these the sunday bombing but were ignored by the government so the opposition or the opposition candidate rajapaksa is playing on knots and hes hoping to win votes on people disaffected by the current government is going to be very tight 50 percent plus one wins the election but with 35. 00 candidates then it will go probably go down to 2nd and 3rd preference votes before we know who wins ill. Bet its not live in colombo thank you very much. Now rainy and protested in multiple cities after the governments hike the cost of fuel by 50 percent the move prompted fears of rising inflation the spike to iran promise and the revenue will go towards families in need charlotte bellus has this reports that her mobile phone video out of western iran shows people chanting fuel prices go higher the poor get poorer i the image repeats in the Northern City of mashad except the words are dictator let go of our country. And near the border with iraq they repeat turn your car off while blocking traffic i a sunset fell across Iran Protests grew against a rising petrol prices and fuel rationing was the government introduced the hikes on friday saying it was to help pay for subsidies for 18000000. 00 families in the had that served as that of the 1st payments will be handled within the next week or 10 days and transferred to the families in model year a strong president believes that if there is going to be petrol price reform all of the new revenues will be paid back in full to the peoples money but for many it was a shock motorists must now pay about 13 seems police or its a 30 percent jump theyre allowed 60 liters of fuel per month anything over that they pay double for as a national with i hadnt heard the news i came here and filled 3 leases and then i noticed the price was 90000. 00 rails then i asked and they said the price is now 30000. 00 reales per liter motorists fear the consequences will be far reaching theyre on the to iran in tehran and the rest of iran everything is dependent on fuel prices if the price of fuel goes up in the night by day the price of rent will go up as well as other Living Expenses including fruit and vegetables it affects everything which is very bad i really believe that it will paralyze a classless society. The laboring class the fuel price hike in rationing stems from multiple issues iran has huge Energy Reserves but a limited Refining Capacity to get it to the pump the government is fighting fuel smuggling to its neighbors iran has some of the cheapest prices in the world today heavy subsidies and the full of its currency the economy has been in freefall since u. S. President donald trump pulled out of the Iran Nuclear Deal last year. Why did they make this decision because they dont have money left we are under sanctions they want to take the money out of the peoples pockets they have a budget deficit they have to take it from my in your pockets to be able to run the country. President obama didnt shed implemented fuel rationing in 2007 in an effort to curb consumption iranians resisted and this time its no different charlotte ballasts aljazeera. Was more still to come on aljazeera including a ahmad backing during chiles protest further change despite a major government to sanction and find out why south korea could be forced to reconsider its 7 decade long military alliance with the us. Hello there has been a real cool off across sections of the middle east over the past week and as will cool weather on the way plenty of cloud and the some snow in the forecast as well northern sections of iran look at this to 6 celsius in tehran meanwhile to ease cloudy skies in kabul and then the rain beginning to work its way southwards across into northern sections assad eurabia and by sunday very extensive and pushing across you can see much of q ways and also across into iran some snow again those Higher Elevations the time it is really coming down over the next few days in kuwait city 27 in southie by monday 22 the average is 28 so probably feeling pretty pretty cool with that temperature of 22 and that re not surprisingly it will work its way southwards across the Arabian Peninsula and so we will see some showers here over the next couple of days across northern side you cross bahrain and also on into cattle because if you coastal showers around amman in terms of accumulations well it may not be the sort of accumulations we see more tropical regions around the world but it is significant in some of these shows they will be very isolated but we could have some very heavy downpours. Meanwhile across in the south africa weve got more rain chiles to the eastern cape but really the very heavy rains across that about africa could see as much as 300 millimeters. Whether sponsored by qatar and. The time holders there are. They dont believe the 2 state solution do you still believe in the 2 state solution we listen what i just said was that pakistan would never start a war im antiwar we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter on the soldiers 00. 0. 000. This is aljazeera a quick reminder of the headlines for you this hour u. S. President omar trump is facing accusations of intimidation after attacking the latest impeachment witnessed on twitter as she testified before congress or evanovich was the u. S. Ambassador in ukraine trumps accused of pressuring ukraine to investigate his political rivals gunmen are showing to have fired on buses carrying tamil and muslim voters but no casualties have been reported it happened shortly after the polls opened in the president ial election. A chill as governments is promising a referendum on a new constitution its a key demands of protesters been rallying for more than a month demonstrators are also demands a greater economic equality a lot in america as a service in yemen has more from santiago less than 24 hours ago chiles rival Political Parties finally arrived at what many call as stark agreement to redraft a constitution that will replace the one that is a hangover from the beach a dictatorship it had been a key demand for testers and yet as you can see people are still back on the streets. And there are many reasons 1st and foremost they say that urgent reforms in Health Education pensions and better salaries cant await the estimated 2 years that it would take to rewrite a constitution. For example pensioners i live on 200. 00 a month i need to buy medicine and food but who cares the government is heartless. Others say they simply dont trust their politicians and want to see the small print of the deal but the biggest complaint has to do with the agreement that would require an article of the constitution to be approved by 2 thirds of the delegates many say that would continue to give the wealthy minorities too much power but it looks as if its excessive 2 thirds is the same limit that we have under the current constitution put there to ensure necessary reforms dont pass the government had a hope that by caving into demands for a new constitution the under arrest or at least the large number of protests on the streets would diminish and while some do say that its a positive step that does require compromise most of the people here believe its just simply not enough. Meanwhile in Bolivia Security forces have shot and killed 5 protests in the cover. Its the single most violent incidents from the process that have followed president havel merola since resignation and then certain governments has taken charge but running is calling for a democratic transition of power have continued fridays killings from the death toll from bolivias protests to 50. The u. S. Is calling on south korea to pay more towards the cost of stationing u. S. Troops in the country