a special investigation on al-jazeera the. president trump's former lawyer michael cohen gets three years in prison for hush money payments and lying to congress. nor intended his al jazeera live from london also coming up a change of leadership in the conservative party will put our country's future at risk and create uncertainty but we can be stability and peace we to reason mae's own party begin a confidence vote which could see her ousted as u.k.

prime minister ever have bricks and deal. french prosecutors named their suspect in the strasburg christmas market shooting as twenty nine year old sherry shakeout. i will explain why cuba's fledgling private sector has just been served up a surprise by the government. i don't trump's former lawyer michael cohen has been sentenced to three years in prison for paying off two women over their ledged affairs with the u.s. president to jail sentence was also for lying to congress about a possible business deal in russia during twenty sixteen presidential election campaign the fifty two year old has pleaded guilty to both charges cohen told the court he carried out his actions out of fish blind loyalty to donald trump. one of the women paid off by michael cohen was adult film star stormy daniels says conan

deserves his every day of his sentence michael cohen is no hero he is no patriot his choice time and time again was to degrade my client seek to intimidate her call her liars. to degrade the office of the presidency of the united. it states by seeking to buy effectively an election this is an outrage he deserves every day of the thirty six month sentence that he will serve. because his name is live outside the courthouse in new york so tell us a little bit about how the events unfolded today. well michael cohen fought back tears as he apologized for the pain he had caused his family he also apologized to the american people for lying to them he said it was blind loyalty to donald trump

that had led him to cover up his quote dirty deeds and he hung his head as the judge read his sentence of three months. he did say that it was actually going to be freedom he was going to be free for the first time that he was under what he described mental incarceration by donald trump and so even though he is going to jail he would now in that way be free cohen's attorneys had argued for no jail time for him they said that he had offered information against the most powerful man in the country not knowing whether or not the special counsel investigation when fact go forward and that he had been willing and was still willing in fact to cooperate with prosecutors and investigators but in the end the judge decided to sentence him to slightly only slightly less than what federal guidelines suggested in that three year sentence he said that while he had

cooperated and provided valuable information to the special counsel's office that the crimes are very serious that he had committed a smorgasbord of criminal offenses based on greed and ambition and that a message needed to be sent to other people who might consider committing the same crimes and he was the happy to ridge and he said that he would take a bullet for the president trying needed to change his mind pretty spectacularly on that and day. it was quite the turnaround he said he would take a bullet for donald trump he as we heard michael haven't already discussed at the beginning of. the segment. threatened them with legal action and all sorts of things so at some point he did turn around and changes to completely but the investigators that interviewed him said that the information he provided has been credible that once he made that turn he did provide information that they could

corroborate and that was very useful to the core investigation that is taking place as to whether or not russia did in fact how russia did try to influence the two thousand and sixteen election christianson amy thank you very much indeed. for john hendren is live for us now from washington d.c. john what does the sentence mean for president trump. well it has implications for him both politically and legally the lawyer for michael cohen lanny davis who's just tweeted out that cohen is willing to talk about everything to muller what that means is this could be more damaging legally for donald trump the national choir the national enquirer which was involved in one of those payments also said that trump knew about those payments so what that means politically is that it's very clear that donald trump lied about what happened here that will certainly weaken his hand but it will also give congress the ability to investigate and members of

the house from the democrats take over the house of representatives in january will likely eagerly take on that task and it means a lot of things that does not want out there things like his tax returns are now going to be out there in the public and that's going to hurt his favor ability ratings it's going to be a problem for him to get legislation through but that was already a foregone conclusion now legally the justice department's official position is that you can't indict a sitting president so he is safe unless he is impeached by the congress but the justice department could also opt to charge him after he leaves office so he also faces a kind of expanded legal liability all of this is bad news for donald trump and so far it hasn't reacted in the past he sought to disparage cohen's claims as a day. he has he referred to cohen as a very weak person said he was

a known liar and then inexplicably trump tweeted that totally clears the president thank you i don't know anyone who reads this that way at all and that's because according to that court testimony in the facts listed by the prosecutors. trump knew about the payments the payments were an illegal act and. knowing and directing those payments would also have been an illegal act so in a sense this court case is that the president of the united states committed a federal crime that's going to be problematic now his press secretary sara sanders has said that there was nothing new that has come out of any of these cases that is not well known they've continued to disparage cohen but there's more information that is likely to come out the national security adviser the former national security adviser for trump michael flynn is also cooperating with prosecutors we don't know what's going to come out of that but we do know that he's talked to them nineteen times and that they have recommended no jail sentence because he's been so

cooperative that is definitely bad news for president trump and it is clear from all that we have learned that the contacts with russia between russia and the campaign re much deeper than the trumpet ministration had portrayed so trump is going to have a difficult time fending all of this off john hundred thank you very much indeed. here in the u.k. a vote of confidence is underway on the leadership of to reason may m.p.'s from her own ruling conservative party started voting just over an hour ago on whether to oust her as prime minister of the united kingdom it follows her decision to delay tuesday's vote on her breaks it deal ferring defeat at a last minute appeal for support before the vote she said she'll step down before the twenty twenty two election when orange county is live outside the houses of parliament as in arms it is supposed to be

a secret ballot when they come to vote but a lot of the m.p.'s have been mentioning their intentions how's it looking for her . yes dear that's it that's exactly right isn't it if you take at face value what all these m.p.'s have been saying on twitter and elsewhere as the days been going on it looks like she should win though that the margin is in question and some commentators are suggesting that it might be a good bit closer than than people think she's not a very passionate person but she supposed to give in a fairly impassioned address to the backbench m.p.'s before they went in suppose and as you say one of one of her key themes was a promise that she wouldn't stand in the next election which is show jewel to be in twenty twenty two which doesn't sound like a very strong thing to say to people but that apparently is a ploy to try to get people on her side will have some analysis in in a minute or two but first of all with a wrap up of the events of the day so far his and her simmons. to reason

may finally facing a vote of confidence not imposed by her parliamentary opposition from her own party and she intends to fight. i will contest that vote with everything i've got a change of leadership in the conservative party now will put our country's future at risk and create uncertainty when we can least afford it. right she immediately counseled a capital meeting and called off a trip to dublin where she was meant to have last ditch the talks with the irish prime minister instead she was doing battle. and if he wants a meaningful data i'll give him one twenty ninth of march two thousand and nineteen when we believe they are here. yet i mean. totally and absolutely unacceptable the prime minister not government already been found to be in contempt of parliament her behavior today is just contemptuous of this policy most of the opposition is

about made cooling off of bricks and votes on monday because she didn't have insurance of winning when is she going to start listening to people that want actually to find a constructive solution to this rather than denying parliament the right to be a tape and vote on her deal that's what we see on the other side of the chamber no plan no two no brakes. this is an extraordinary time in british politics most would say for all the wrong reasons prime minister may whose election campaign slogan was strong and stable back in twenty seventeen now stands accused of being weak of anything but stable except that there's a minority of us in parliament who want to breaks a decision made by the people in the twenty sixteen referendum and we need a leader of a government is going to make sure that we can stay all that much as the basic anxiety that sitting here this isn't the time to be talking about changing leader

we're in the middle of a very complex and delicate negotiation with our european partners who are executing something which is of vital importance to the country i stand ready to finish the job. the question is will she get that opportunity the secret ballot in a westminster committee room is now underway. so of course if she loses it is absolute chaos because then they have to be a leadership contest which could go on well into next year but if she wins then does it really make a difference i'm joined by jonathan list from the think tank british influence do you think she will win. the signs are that she will win and we've seen that it's a majority of tory m.p.'s have already stated state's public eat it that they'll support her so find out in the next half an hour and if she wins does it make a lot of difference to her plan to get her interpretation of bricks it through meaningful vote you think the problem that she has is that the numbers are still against half the deal she still clinging to the deal and the e.u. sort of easing to change the deal so although that piece of the jigsaw puzzle is

still in place all we've seen is edwards extraordinary political cowardice and to reason may she's going to have to date and she's day she realized she could win it so she delayed the vote which is enormously discourteous she's already just been found in contempt of parliament then she goes see the at the e.u. tries to get concessions which she must know she can't get and then comes back so there's a real pretense going on and that is why we've had this very because enough tory m.p.'s got so fed up with her after she did that they decided enough is enough but the problem is then not enough to n.b.c. greater than you know but to just extrapolate for a second if if she does win and then this meaningful vote on her deal happens presumably at sometime in january and she can get me further as you suggest and then loses then you'll back automatically into into the no deal scenario which which actually she would defeat in the leadership contest tonight so just go down in the circle that we're heading for a stalemate that paralysis if you like now the problem aids the trees that may

doesn't hold all because this is going to make her a lot stronger if she wins tonight because it means that she won't be challenged for a year but really she still has no all thirty whatsoever she has no credibility no authority amongst her. he's sorry parliament is now in charge of this process no deal is not going to happen he was speaking to tobias elwood sure a little while ago a tory prominent tory m.p. he confirmed that he was against no deal plenty of other tory m.p.'s of said they're against a deal as well no deal simply doesn't have the numbers in parliament no but if if if they're just to go through it again if they don't want no deal and they don't want her deal either in the fullness of time then there isn't any alternative is there but to suspend article fifty the bit of about leaving the european union in time until they can figure something else out that's right you can suspend article fifty what you could do is either extend it with the unanimous consent of the e.u. will revoke it altogether and the european court of justice has just confirmed that

we can unilaterally revoke it so we don't need the permission of the e.u. anymore we can stop breaks at any time you like before we actually leave and that is incredibly important because if we are heading towards an ideal scenario m m p's can it actually force the government's hand and say no we must instead either have a referendum and then vote or just vote ok stay with us and as evening goes on the actual vote is due to close in where all we know about forty five minutes or so later o'clock local time we don't think it can take very long before they make the announcement because three hundred seventeen vote isn't really very many to count so stay with us and we'll tell you what happens next. thank you very much indeed. so to come this off hour a militia leader turned football official is arrested in france accused of war crimes in central african republic. and calls grow from in march a release to go to journalists arrested exactly a year ago one of best to getting reports of a massacre. hello

there we've got a lot of heavy rain that's pushing its way towards europe at the moment the satellite picture is showing that system as it gradually creeps towards us bringing some wet weather across parts of britain and ireland and down through parts of france and into spain and portugal as well actually the southern section where we're going to see the worst of the weather as we head through the next day also on thursday then it is going to be the eastern part of the iberian peninsula where we see the wettest of the weather and then that transfers its way across towards italy there as we head through friday here the winds are feeding up from the south though so the winds are actually bringing in some model to esso despite the fact is going to be wet and windy the temperatures in rome will be rising some of all of that what weather will be affecting us in the northwest in parts of africa too you can see a few outbreaks of rain just making their way on to the northern parts of morocco there as we head through thursday and then by friday that will be sweeping its way eastwards the winds behind it though feeding down from the north so the

temperatures really dropping out she is will have a pretty cool day with a maximum just of fourteen it will be wet and windy as well meanwhile for the east largely fine and dry force cairo getting up to around twenty two degrees at the moment but further towards the founder just got a few showers in the fall so the parts of our map also with us into bone but for the northeast lawfully draw now for many of us in west africa. fresh perspectives new possibilities fearless journalism. debates and discussions global terror attacks told by a fair i'm fatalities from those attacks fell by a quarter that's a good news story al-jazeera is award winning programs take you on a journey around the globe because. only on al-jazeera.

and in your mind the top stories on our. us presidents former lawyer has been sentenced to three years in prison michael cohen pleaded guilty to paying hush money to two women over their alleged affairs with trouble he also lied to congress about a possible business deal in russia. and members of the british prime minister's party are currently casting their ballots in a confidence vote over her leadership to resume has vowed to fight the challenge but she offered to step down before the next election and she made a last minute appeal for support. french prosecutors have identified the man they

suspect shot dead at least two people at a christmas market in the french city of strasburg but he says searching for twenty nine year old named sheriff check out it was a long history of gun crime he was injured while fleeing the scene on tuesday night bennett smith has the latest from strasburg. preparing for christmas and a heavily armed guard strasbourg on wednesday morning noticeably quieter as police continue to hunt the gunman who opened fire on police and shoppers the night before as victims lie on the. street other sorts safety in narrow alleyways as the sound of gunfire echoed around the city center. first i heard several shots and i thought maybe it's firecrackers or they're attacking a store i saw a lot of people running scared crying kids and all and i was very very scared because it was really quite a lot of shooting there was a moment of panic so everyone was running around there were police officers saying to leave to hide so that's what we did the gunman named by police as twenty nine

year old sharif should cat opened fire on a police patrol just as christmas market stalls were closing panic shoppers run for cover into shops and restaurants while the wounded gunman escaped in the confusion you don't really think. the assailant lay of the town center just a little off to a pier on a cab or dropped him off in the new hoff neighborhood the cab driver said the suspect asked to be dropped off without giving a pacific address telling the driver he would guide able to the cab driver has attempted but then realized he was carrying a gun and was wounded he told the cab driver that he had opened fire on soldiers and killed ten people strasbourg is near the border with germany where security has been increased because the gunman may have crossed the open front the police say the suspected attacker a served several prison sentences in france and germany his home was raided hours before the market shooting in connection with a robbery in the summer but check out wasn't there more than six hundred french

security personnel as well as border guards are involved in the hunt for the gunman and the french government has raised its terrorism alert level to the highest possible sharif's account is one of twenty six thousand names on the government watch list of people suspected opposing a security risk. bernard smith al-jazeera strasbourg. a member of africa's top football governing body has been arrested in france accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity a place into our nigga sona is also a former militia leader and political coordinator of armed groups in central african republic it was controversially elected to the board of african football in february international criminal court heard recently filed a warrant for his address for his arrest a bit upon a butler has the latest from paris well patrice eduardo i so know was arrested by french authorities in frogs on a warrant issued by the international criminal court he was wanted for crimes

against humanity including murder and torture and that what the i.c.c. say is the guy so you know was a senior leader a senior figure in the anti by laugher militia a predominately christian led militia that carried out atrocities against muslims in the civil war after twenty thirty now there were a muslim led militia and christian led militia both carried out various forms of brutality against each other say the i.c.c. now i so know will be extradited to the international criminal court to the hague and when we spoke to the i.c.c. they could not tell us why in fact he was in france and where exactly in france he was arrested the two worrying signs in yemen who've been holding talks in sweden aimed at resolving the conflict and i'm considering for draft agreements from the united nations as peace negotiations near their final day the u.n. documents detail options for

a political framework the reopening of sonar fought the status of the port city of data and yemen's economic situation the two parties a saudi supported government and iran backed rebels are expected to give their responses to the u.n. agreements on thursday. someone trump says he's willing to intervene in the case against a top executive of chinese telecom giant hey if it would help secure a trade deal with beijing may one who has been freed on bail in canada eleven days after her arrest she surrendered her passport and swear and monitoring tag making faces extradition to the u.s. where she's wanted for violating sanctions on iran china's foreign ministry says it welcomes any intervention to release her. group or any person especially a leader of the united states or a high level figure who's willing to make a positive effort to push the situation towards the right direction then of course deserves to be well received well one man one joule being arrested was

a mistake from the start we have already made our position clear to united states and canada who should immediately correct their mistake and release one joe for being congress has approved a twelve month extension of martial law in this southern mindanao region it was requested by president reagan detected he says the tough security measures will stay in place to stop muslim fighters from regrouping in place the region under martial law in twenty seventeen after a large scale attack by isolating fighters. are also growing louder for the release of two bushes journalists who are among those named as time magazine's person of the year well known and who were arrested him in moggs actually a year ago when investigating reports of a revenge a massacre they were convicted for obtaining secret state documents and sentenced to seven years in prison even port. to win is bringing up her three year old daughter without her husband journalist charles so one of two reuters reporters

imprisoned in myanmar having met all cleared up our daughter started to ask why doesn't that he love us why isn't he living with us so i tell her he loved the phone much that's why he's working at the prison. quality while loan is also in jail and missed his wife giving birth to their child. i miss him there are just a lot of things i miss about him all the time and everywhere both reporters were arrested last december they were sentenced in september to seven years for possessing secret state documents the journalists were investigating reports of a massacre of revenge of the logistics by security forces in northern. while owen and torso who say they were set up by the police who handed the documents to them moments before their arrest caused an international outcry on the first anniversary of their jailing colleagues are intensifying calls for their release the fact that

they remain in prison for a crime they did not commit calls into question meanwhile his commitment to democracy freedom of expression and rule of law every day they continue to be behind bars is a missed opportunity for miramar to stand up for justice social media users have post itself with the thumbs up sign that was the signature pose of the reporters each time they appeared in court but the hash tag free wallow in charge. human rights advocates say a free press is more important now than ever the alternative to not speaking out doubt they're not recognizing the value of breath white. silence and white. at the moment untenable if we are to uphold press freedom. the reporters were arrested months after the military launched a crackdown in rakhine state that cost around three quarters of a million ridge or to seek safety in neighboring bangladesh a u.n.

fact finding mission concluded that the soldiers had acted with what was described as genocidal intent against the revenger committing mass killings and gang rape and the un has called for the prosecution of army commanders florence louis. sri lanka's sacked prime minister has won a vote of confidence in parliament their island nation has been locked in political turmoil since rather workroom a singer was dismissed by president matter of policy or center in october and replaced by a former president mahinda rajapaksa since then parliament has voted twice to sack rajapaksa but he has refused to resign small business owners in cuba chairing a u. turn while the communist run government which has backtracked on new restrictions on private enterprise the number of privately run restaurants has been growing though the government still owns most hotels on the island from havana our latin america solution human force. that the owner of this have an apartment rents rooms

to tourists just when new and highly unpopular restrictions on cuba's fledgling private sector were about to go into effect last week authorities surprised everyone. would have been families from having more than one license but now they've lifted the limit so that for example we can also sell handicrafts food. in another unusual response to public pressure plans to limit private restaurants to only fifty chairs also scrapped. thirteen percent of the workforce has moved over to the private sector many of them professionals have abandoned their jobs in state run into prizes like mechanical engineering. flatow you're welcome i would have preferred someone hall for a quarter of what it was just to stay my profession which i love but i couldn't even a fraction of the. family working for the state continue to move the dominant state

sector is struggling to keep employees which may help explain attempts to limit small privately run businesses they're very far they want a specific thing which people with their own businesses mean the. other side of reasons in every area in any area of the economy never is said to. new demands and restrictions have been placed even on private taxis despite the acute shortage of public transportation unlike vietnam and china the communist party here still use the private sector with suspicion for many reasons including ideological social and geo political cuban government and are afraid that a growing and increasingly sophisticated private sector well help advance the us government's anti communist agenda here in fact both president barack obama and now president donald trump have repeatedly said that they want to help and encourage the private sector. because they view it as an engine for political trains here but

the decision to backtrack on plans to reduce the private sector even further seems to be recognition that like it or not to the struggling economy that you're seeing human al-jazeera. undermine you can catch up any time by checking out a website on their dot com and you can watch a sparkling on the live icon. or one of the top stories on our jazeera the u.s. president's former lawyer has been sentenced to three years in prison michael cohen pleaded guilty to paying hush money to two women over there nudged affairs with donald trump he also lied to congress about a possible trump business deal in russia cohen told the court he carried out his actions out of face no o.t. to donald trump christian salumi has more from new york cohen's attorneys had argued for no jail time for him they said that he had offered information against

the most powerful man in the country not knowing whether or not the special counsel investigation would in fact go forward and that he had been willing and was still willing in fact to cooperate with prosecutors and investigators but in the end the judge decided to sentence him to slightly only slightly less than what federal guidelines suggested in that three year sentence a vote of confidence in the british prime minister is currently under way it was triggered by m.p.'s who are unhappy with tourism a's breaks it deal made his vow to fight the challenge but offered to step down before the next election and a last minute appeal for support needs a simple majority to keep their jobs is a vote just a right and pays in the conservative party. french prosecutors have named the man they suspect shot and killed at least two people at a christmas market in the french city of strasburg hundreds of police are searching for a twenty nine year old named sherry shakeout who has

a long history of gun crime he was injured while fleeing the scene on tuesday night a member of africa's top football governing body has been arrested in france accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity but nigga so enough is also a former militia leader and political coordinator of armed groups in central african republic the two warring sides in yemen have been holding talks in sweden aimed at resolving the conflict and now considering four draft agreements from the united nations as peace negotiations near their final day of documents detail options for a political framework the reopening of sana airport status of the port city of data and yemen's economic situation. there's the top stories do stay with us the stream is coming up next after that ifa.

hi i'm femi ok and you're in the stream hundreds of thousands of french citizens are rallying against economic inequality and the government we explore what the yellow vest demonstrations mean for france and join the conversation by leaving your comments in the you tube chat but first have a listen to what french president emmanuel mccall said on monday after four consecutive weekends of antigovernment protests upon the part of the cyclists possibility. not even if wooden it is something moccasin if you see.