Diplomat to ukraine testifies in an impeachment inquiry and explains how the president tried to pressure kiev to discredit his political rival and the protesters in lebanon keep up the pressure on the government despite new reforms to help ease the economic crisis. Hello everyone turkey and russia have reached a deal to clear out kurdish backed fighters from Northern Syria ankara launched its offensive in the area last week but suspended the operation following a u. S. Brokered cease fire a report from step past the now in such. With only our us left off a u. S. Brokered cease fire in syria russia stepped in president putin offered help to remove and this goodish vitus at the turkish Syrian Border together with Syrian Border troops was delayed we share turkeys concern about the growing threats of terrorism and the growth of ethnic tensions in the region these tensions and the separatist mood in recent times where in our opinion artificially created by outsiders. Goodish fighters have until next tuesday evening local time to clear turkeys 30 kilometer socalled safe zone Russian Military police will then start joint patrols with Turkish Forces along almost the entire North EasternSyrian Border. Is on the barren moving threats posed by either terrorist organization this operation in syria guarantees syrias territorial integrity and political unity we never had eyes on the countrys territory and sovereignty as turkey all steps are taken in the field we have taken with sensitivity. Both leaders agreed that the Syrian Constitutional Committee should start its work on october 30 despite the current actions on the ground within insists the courts should be part of the political solution for syria after a long discussion with president putin not only managed to become the main power broker in syria he also gained territory for his allies syrian president assad who now gets back control over cultural border areas but we can only call this a russian success if they manage to remove and this arm goodish fighters from this 30 kilometers zone. Only down will the Turkish Military operation and according to the Russian Foreign minister who spoke after the meeting put and also made it clear that for any future solution in syria the turkish and Syrian Government have to reach their own deal russia wants to revive the 998 agreement between syria and turkey in which syria committed to stop supporting could if fighters russia was quick to fill the vacuum left by the u. S. Withdrawal from North Eastern syria but by moscows own admission achieving any kind of lasting solution will be a long and complicated process steps last an aljazeera sochi. Just to put it on the map for you for a bit of context this is the safe zone that anchor. It wants to create and we go along the turkey syria border 30 kilometers inside syria and those joint patrols we talked about would be 10 kilometers deep on both sides of the area running between and again the thoughts not Steven Fisher we spoke to the a professor at the university of california berkeley he specializes in Russian Affairs and says moscow has benefited from Donald Trumps decision to pull u. S. Troops out of syria the story is really all about russia in the United States this is a great moment for putin he has sought a foothold in the middle east and to restore at least soviet levels of russian influence in the middle east for many years this is a great moment for him because hes actually getting the United States to withdraw from positions in the middle east and then occupying those positions United States is withdrawing from putin also cares a lot about prestige in International Relations and humiliating the United States the way hes managed to do is a big accomplishment for him and hes really rubbing it in his defense minister announced that the United States has one hour and 31 minutes to get out of syria president took the letter the crazy letter the President Trump sent him and ostentatiously threw it in the garbage the United States is being humiliated by its own president who would have thought that the United States would suddenly pull up stakes and abandon its long term ally that has done the heavy lifting in the battle against isis in syria and simply leave them to be destroyed perhaps even ethnically cleansed by hostile turkish Turkish Forces who would think that the United States would withdraw also hastily from its bases the Russian Media would be in there recording pictures of you know empty soda cans left on desks and you know trucks fleeing out of town as local Kurdish Forces attacked them this is a total humiliation for the United States this is exactly what putin wanted of course. On to other news and Britains Parliament has rejected Prime Minister baraks johnsons plan to fast track his brags that deal with the European Union it means there is now little chance of the u. K. Leaving the block by the date of october 31st story chalons with this report from westminster. It is as m. P. s point out unprecedented for parliament to pass such a large and important bill so quickly yet the governments wanted its Withdrawal Agreement bill through the commons before the end of the week mr speaker i was incredibly concerned when i was reminded by my wife earlier today that we spent my wife and i spent longer choosing a school for then we have city bay this incredibly cool to hear on tuesday the legislation for leaving the European Union was facing 2 hurdles would m. P. s vote to give it more consideration and would they agree to the governments breakneck timetable the Prime Minister hopes he could focus minds with this warning if parliament refuses to allow the brics to happen and instead gets its way in decides to delay everything until january possibly longer is a great regret i would say that the book the bill will have to be pulled and we will have to go forward much as a writer may not like it well have to go forward to a general election 1st up would m. P. s give his Withdrawal Agreement build their approval in principle so the guys have it the ayes have it m. P. s gave it the north through to a 2nd reading a crucial victory for the Prime Minister the 1st time in this tortured saga that parliament has given any breaks a deal any kind of approval but glory was short lived next up was the vote on the timetable for the guys to the right 308 its no use to the last 322 so the notorious having their nose have it once again m. P. s have slammed the brakes on brakes it tonights the house has refused to be bounced into debating a hugely significant piece of legislation in just 2 days with barely any notice and an analysis of the. Impact of this bill the Prime Minister is the also of his own misfortune jeremy called when offered to Work Together to find a mutually agreeable timetable for us johnson responded by saying he was putting the bill on hold for now his do or die dreams of leaving the e. U. On october 31st look to have been dealt a mortal blow so what i was next depends on the e. U. Its been considering that letter Boris Johnson was obliged by parliament to write last saturday requesting a break sit extension if it grants a long 1 january or further then as we just heard from the Prime Minister he is going to try pushing for a general election if we get something shorter all more flexible then that suggests that the e. U. Like Boris Johnson just wants to get the brakes it done. Aljazeera london the top u. S. Diplomat in ukraine has wrapped up 10 hours of testimony as part of the impeachment inquiry against president obama trump democrats leading the deposition say William Taylors provided the clearest account that trump pressured ukraine to investigate a political rival in exchange for military aid and support from alan fischer. William taylor is the acting u. S. Ambassador to ukraine a career diplomat who served democrats and republican administrations the white house ordered him to ignore the impeachment inquiry he defied that instruction his closed door testimony may be highly damaging to President Trump he was what he the white house meeting with ukraines new president vladimir selenski was being held up until he delivered ukrainian help in investigating Donald Trumps political rival joe biden in his Opening Statement he said he spoke with ambassador gordon saundra and the u. S. Envoy to the European Union during that phone call ambassador sunderland told me that President Trump had told him that he wants president selenski to state publicly that ukraine will investigate burst and alleged ukrainian interference in the 2016 election taylor said in the statement joe bidens son hunter had been a board member of a Ukrainian Gas Company killer continued ambassador sunderland also told me that he no recognized he made a mistake by eliot telling the ukrainian officials to whom he spoke that a white house meeting with president selenski was the pendant on a public announcement of investigations in fact ambassador saw and said everything was dependent on such an announcement including Security Assistance while the president wasnt calling this a quid pro quo taylor suggests thats exactly what it was soliciting foreign help in u. S. Elections is illegal in my 10 short months in congress its not even noon right and this is my most disturbing day in congress so far a growing number of americans believe donald trump should be impeached and removed from office for the 1st time that number is more than 50 percent the president has tried to discredit the investigation tweeting all republicans must remember what they are witnessing here a lynching the president should not compare it constitutionally mandated impeachment inquiry to such. Dangerous and dark chapter of American History other democrats called the lynching reference disgusting but one of the president s biggest supporters wasnt ready to be done in every since this is a mob taking over the rule of law this is fundamentally unamerican and until that changes i will fight back as hard as i can in the house Investigation Continues largely behind closed doors there are plans for open hearing soon on impeachment could come before the end of the year alan fischer washington stay friends with us now from washington the editor at large at the hill and also the host of aljazeera is new weekly politics show the bottom line nice to see a stave the sheer weight of evidence that we have now it must start to tell it must start to make a difference particularly with what we hear now today from. The ukrainian received well i think its making a difference inside washington but that has not yet trickled down to other parts of the country we saw it really last week when members of the National SecurityCouncil Staff fiona hill who was the president s adviser on the National Council for you cant crane in russia leaked out some of the details about Rudy Giuliani running a shadow Foreign Policy and some of the concerns that john bolton had about giuliani what made this so important at that moment and its only gotten bigger since is this is the 1st time republicans have criticized the president who are inside his cant not because of policy difference but policy differences but because of perceived improprieties thats whats begun to change and youre beginning to feel this heat up is this enough if you are talking about the republicans in the senate to ultimately will be the ones who decide if the president is impeached whether he leaves office or not is its now starting to look like enough of them to turn what they might be not their position. I wont say come all that its enough yet we see people out like senator mitt romney who is very much out there and presenting himself potentially as an alternative to President Trump i think but hes been very critical i think people like Susan Collins the senator from maine and also cory gardner the senator from colorado are all looking as if they have serious concerns with whats going on but you just played a tape with senator Lindsey Graham who is sticking you know hes sort of sticking strong with the president but at the same time hes been very upset about the betrayal of the kurds in syria and said if there is anything beyond the ukraine phone call that is a crime he would support an impeachment inquiry so its wobbly in other places so its too much too early to say this is enough but certainly its more than a week ago and on the flip side of things if we think about President Trump and the white house. Is he effectively digging himself a deeper hole at the moment because his attitude is to say well yeah i mean im going you know i want biden investigated go off to him the rest of the country sort of saying what are you saying youre incriminating. But his way to do it its to go on the attack every time. Well this president is highly unusual past president s of the United States have gotten into trouble with what we call the coverup it wasnt the crime it was the cover up this president doesnt cover up to much that we know of he basically blurts it out on twitter says it out loud and kind of normalizes it away with whatever behavior is unprecedented and some would argue illegal but his normalize some of these alleged illegal acts or unconstitutional acts with his base who have not yet abandoned him so it is as someone said on my show today the bottom line hes doing it all out in the open not with the cover up and this is what is unusual about the times that were in just briefly state as far as the impeachment inquiry goes with what the democrats are doing is there a sort of a vague timeline of what happens or is it just up to the democrats to keep calling witnesses keep building the case and then eventually at some point they move theyre trying to get it done before christmas but i think that originally the democrats had an unrealistic timeline they thought they had enough evidence to move on things like the the phone call issue in the call to the president of ukraine in trying to withhold essentially you know hold hostage security aid unless they open an investigation into hunter biden in the biden activities in ukraine but my sense is that in all of these cases one of the things that the reality about american politics everything takes much longer than one think so i think we dont know the exact timeline what we do know is that unrealistic timeline wasnt met and that this is going to go into christmas and my bet is it goes beyond Christmas Steve clemons is the host of the bottom line a new discussion show next showing at 1430 g. M. T. Today steve thank you im all thank you. Heres whats coming up for you on this news hour chiller its president sends a message to the nation as the worst unrest in 3 decades threatens to spiral out of control human Rights Groups raise concerns about the way guinea is dealing with antigovernment protesters and sport a night of drama in the Champions League a full round up coming up with. A look at lebanon now where protesters remain on the streets despite the emergency reforms announced by the Prime Minister demonstrations began last week over the governments plan to impose new taxes stephanie decades reporting now from tripoli in northern lebanon. Day 6 and many roadblocks remain in place banks and schools are closed across lebanon many Bank Machines dont have cash the Prime Ministers proposals for forms havent changed the situation on the ground that are the shit people are going into the streets for their future and the future of their children in reality the Political Class that we have has less than nothing before this uprising if we can call it that the government tried to pick the pocket of every poor person until they were left with nothing but Prime Minister sad how to be has met ambassadors of various countries including the u. S. And russia as well as the arab league they welcomed the reforms but also urged him to address the demands of the people but what these people who