you know it's going to be very interesting to see how the dynamic between the republican request for witnesses and how much latitude shift gives them we're obviously still a bit away from a final vote on impeachment but is there anything to be read into this in trying to predict how the final vote might go well you know the fact that it was almost entirely on partisan lines is is noteworthy you had 2 democrats bolton voted against no republicans not a single one voted for this inquiry and if that stays the same after the public hearings after the full transcripts are released after all the testimony is in if it remains a republican inquiry ettes going to make it harder for republican senators who are ultimately going to be deciding the fate of president trump to vote to

convict it doesn't make it impossible because it's all going to rest on how strong that evidence is how powerful the democrats make their public case but you know clearly the democrats and speaker pelosi didn't want this to be a purely partisan exercise right now it looks like largely it is laura thanks so much for your analysis on that iran can present at home saddam has addressed the nation in a televised speech promised he will approve of the elections in response to the week's long protests and he said the prime minister is ready to resign if a replacement is agreed the announcement comes as thousands of protesters a back on the streets of baghdad doing that yvonne's form. the kind of place that was that the prime minister has announced he's prepared to

render his resignation and source an agreement from all the political parties will be avoid any constitutional vacuum i want to include civil groups in order to have the aspired reforms within the legal framework and in a manner that preserves public interest peace and security the current situation cannot go on we are truly in need of reform and massive changes that show what i am has the latest from back that protesters heard this evening from president barham saleh was a kind of yes but yes prime minister ayad mehdi will resign but only after a replacement is agreed upon no timeframe has been given for when that replacement successor will be named instead there was a mention that they are reluctant. to step down immediately because there are fears of a quote constitutional vacuum another thing that said there will be elections but not

until a new election law can be drafted and a new election can be formulated. said that a draft of a new election law will be presented to the parliament next week again no timeframe has been given as to how long that would take meanwhile mehdi is saying that he is asking political parties or in the parliament to help find a successor to him it's important to note that mehdi came to power a year ago he's only been in office for a year and a week as prime minister and at that time sami he was considered a consensus candidate or consensus prime minister because there was a lot of wrangling in the parliament as to who should become the next prime minister. still ahead on al-jazeera a gas cooker explodes on a train in pakistan killing at least 70 people. waiting for closure find out why getting government has not released the bodies of protesters killed 2 weeks ago.

i. know there are some very heavy rain across areas over there. this is whole part and parcel of it this is actually the remnants of what was if a short lived tropical storm is continuing to be as heavy rains really for the next few days really impacting northern areas of vietnam on friday conditions around this system not bad through eastern china mostly sunny skies into shanghai and abetted a set into hong kong 28 is the high temperature the rain will continue across much of it and we could over the next $23.00 days think up a $300.00 millimeters of rain and that is continuing into southern areas over india but not just that here again we have a new tropical system and this is it now is pulling away from the southwest coast

it's taking cools the heaviest of the rain with it but this storm system will continue to strengthen as a go through friday and saturday it will sunny help with the showers across the west silence to work. and then all south of a little edge further away towards the west but the rains fairly widespread through maharashtra and on towards dishes well carolus saying a few more shots but really most of the rain through friday and saturday is going to be down into tamil nadu and across into shoreline criswell system scottish thunderstorms a high authority will know in mumbai. young . wendy. going to have this opportunity. so the young girls who can be school will be able to see and that's one thing able to change. the women in

who are going places when it comes to education women make change. come back here watching al-jazeera time to recap our headlines now a big win for us house democrats after a key motion on the trump impeachment inquiry is approved testimonies in the coming weeks are now expected to be made public behind closed doors the u.s. national security council's former top adviser for russian and european affairs is in capitol hill testifying in the impeachment inquiry tomorrow some resign from his post a day before the closed door testimony. let's look at how the rest of the world is

perceiving developments on the impeachment inquiry into the u.s. president bashar al jazeera senior political analyst joins us now from london good to have you with us so let me start with that question how do you think the rest of the world is witnessing special what happened today. well of course it depends on what you looking at but certainly a good part of the world as usual would look at a process that is peaceful and that is judicial and that is sorber within washington and admire the united states for its democracy and for its rule of law that is something that is of course envious or a medal for some who are sitting in a number of countries where the presidents do far worse than what trump may or may

have not done and of course there will sit on the throne and will continue to rule for ever there are others who present the trump rub them their own way and believe me here abdullah a lot of leaders in this war the wrong way including here in europe and elsewhere those who were wrong would buy or criticized or attacked or humiliated by trump of course now look at it and be happy that you know trump now is finally facing some sort of accountability and last but not least and i think this is probably the more important and the more serious part of those who remember when president clinton wanted to distract the public opinion at home from his own potential impeachment and started carrying attacks abroad especially against the a shift the fact that he was sudan for example with very little or no evidence the real evidence leading to some deaths and destruction simply because he wanted

to deflect the public opinion from the pitchman so those people who have that kind of memory of what happened by a sober american president 20 years ago are probably looking at trump and thinking this president is probably capable of doing worse to deflect public opinion. rights of godless of where one stands in terms of being rubbed the right or wrong way by donald trump do you think that overall we can say is this an america that's becoming increasingly consumed with its own internal issues and polarization absolutely. you know we look at the similar situation for example today in israel america's foremost ally in the middle east and we see a prime minister is facing a similar trouble to that of the american president then and it's clear that

they're not able to take advantage as one american special envoy the president from scorn. suddenly. going to take advantage of a number of opportunities there simply because the article sought by their own troubles especially that of a prime minister so the american president facing similar troubles i think will be consumed at home the next year on the one hand the economy is not doing that great anymore to he there's it's an election year and 3 the senate impeachment so you can imagine a president who is already quite obsessed with media coverage and media criticism and public opinion a source so forth engaged in elections and so on and so forth with this impeachment process he's going to have very little time to take care of a very few issues abroad and i'm talking about the serious issues so for example look at china so china now will be looking at the united states and says this president is quite consumed with his own troubles. would he be able to deal

seriously with the 3rd issue well not seriously but he could be dealing and making shock waves by for example giving in to china and i writing at some kind of a trade deal or worse he could be backfiring against china in order again to deflect the public opinion. on his impeachment and leading to escalation with china we don't know with donald trump star predictable whether he will take this path or the other time will tell i guess stay tuned thanks so much more on the shot of the . 70 people have been killed in pakistan after a gas stove exploded on a train sparking a huge fire that's the country's worst rail disaster in over a decade the accident happened near the town. in the south of job province. reports from royal pindi where the train was headed. water he says someone give me

water because this man is among the dozens of people wounded when a passenger train caught fire in pakistan witnesses say in addition to those who were burned alive many people died as a tried to jump from the high speed burning train most of them were pogroms heading to a religious gathering they routinely carry all essential items including gas cylinders and beddings for their religious meeting which lasts for days initial reports suggest that someone tried to make breakfast on an open gas flame one investigator told al-jazeera that the speed of the train fanned the flames small mattresses and belongings of the pilgrims acted as fuel and the fire quickly spread to other witnesses say it was caused by a short circuit the prime minister has ordered an investigation and the minister in charge admits there was a failure. here this is a security lapse and these people were successful in carrying the stores in cylinder in the coaches we don't have scanners in small station but we have scanners at all the 7 railway divisional headquarters which are great that this

happened but it's been a difficult task to identify people because many bookings were made for groups nearly half of the people killed were burned beyond recognition and their bodies have been sent for d.n.a. tests 70000000 people use a real service every year in pakistan but there are no fire extinguishers in passenger compartment and safety checks are almost nonexistent this is not the 1st incident of its kind back sunrays history have been checkered with many such accidents before people here say that despite this being one of them with affordable more off transport there has been a lack of investment mismanagement. corruption which is really is the bottom. when the prime minister and israeli minister were in opposition the call for resignations and strict auction off to be an accident this is the 7th accident and didn't run the government some passengers now ask when will you carry out those punishments he used to recommend the growth of our osama bin. *

streets in parts of india not misted kashmir deserted as the state officially transitioned into 2 union territories businesses and offices shot and there's a heavy military presence in the region is also claimed by pakistan it's now under direct control of the central government that has been stiff resistance to that move in the muslim dominated kashmir valley same. time will prove that this situation will not remain on how long will you keep a community under lockdown the world is watching right now. let's take you to washington d.c. where we're hearing an advance on members of the house of representatives figuring that he votes let's listen it is council there were not expressly provided during prime impeachments and they lay out a clear path forward so the american people can hear firsthand the serious and alarming allegations about president trumps abuse of power and i'm proud of the

resolution we put together i believe that it will withstand the test of time i'm proud of the work of the rules committee and and even though it gets somewhat contentious last night i want to say probably the way all members democrats and republicans conducted themselves there was no live streaming in narration during the markup nobody storm the committee nobody sees the microphone people behave i think in a way that is respectful of this institution and i appreciate the cooperation of ranking member tom cole and the other republicans as well. i want to. thank all of the committee chairs here for their hard work to uncover the truth to be happy american people this vote is a victory not for not theirs vote is a victory not not for any of us but behalf of the of the constituents who sent us here and who demand that we follow the facts and uphold our oath i also want to thank the courageous civil servants who have come forward to testify so far many in

contradiction of this administration's attempts to silence them and at great risk to their own career let me conclude with this i truly believe that 100 years from now historians will look back at this moment and judge us by the city as we are making here today at the end of the day this reason this resolution isn't about donald trump it isn't about any of us it's about our constitution and it's about our country and now i'm happy to yield to the distinguished chair of this like committee on intelligence adam schefter. i think the german for yielding and this is a solemn day in the history of our country when the president's misconduct has compelled us to continue to move forward with an impeachment inquiry. the resolution today sets out the procedures going forward with that impeachment process the founding fathers understood that a leader might take hold of the oval office who would sacrifice the national security who would fail to defend the constitution who places personal or political

interests above the interests of the country they understood that might happen. and they provided a mechanism to deal with it and that mechanism is called impeachment. we take no joy in having to move down this road and proceed with the impeachment inquiry. but neither do we shrink from it. the resolution from the perspective the intelligence committee sets out important procedures for how we may conduct our open hearings during the day depositions that we've conducted thus far we've used a format that we believe very conducive to the fact finding process those procedures now will be incorporated into the open hearings in which staff counsel will be permitted for lengthy periods of time to do sustained questioning for up to 45 minutes per side followed by member questioning we've used this i think to great success for both parties during the course of the depositions where in the

depositions we have alternated one hour for the majority one hour for the minority 45 minutes for the majority 45 minutes for the majority in those depositions over 100 members have been eligible to participate i should tell you that notwithstanding those that have complained about a lack of access to the depositions most of the members who have been permitted to attend have failed to attend have not made use of the availability of attending each and every deposition but those that have on both sides of the aisle have had an equal opportunity to question the witnesses and indeed when we move into open session both parties will have an equal opportunity to question any witnesses that are called the right or the resolution will also permit as the chair to release to begin releasing the transcripts of the depositions and i think that you will see when those are released just what equal opportunity members of both parties have

had. we recognize the seriousness of this undertaking. we recognize that we have been compelled by the circumstances to move forward. when a president. abuses his or her office when a president sacrifices the national interest when a president refuses to defend the constitution. and does so for the purpose of advancing a personal or political agenda. the founders provided the remedy. i make no pre-judgment as to whether. that remedy will be warranted when we finish these hearings i will wait until all the facts are put forward. we will undertake this duty with the seriousness it deserves and to the best of our ability thank you

and i now yield to the chair of the just your committee mr nadler. thank you very much. no person republican or democrat president or anyone else should be permitted to jeopardize america's security and reputation for self-serving political purposes no president. no official can demand that an ally of the united states. do anything in particular to help his or her political ambitions as a condition of receiving help from our country. if after with fair and thorough inquiry the allegations against president trump are found to be true they would represent a profound offense against the constitution and against the people of this country it is the duty of the house. to vindicate the constitution and to make

it crystal clear to future presidents that this kind of conduct if proven is an affront to the great public that placed their trust in him or her. this resolution that we passed today lays the groundwork for open hearings in both the intelligence committee and the judiciary committee the house and the american public must see all the evidence for themselves the resolution makes clear the ample safeguards in the process that will be given. and that will be adhered to the resolutions necessary to ensure that our constitutional order remains intact for future generations what we have seen allegations of conduct and many levels that if proven to be true i may challenge to the democratic order to democratic norms in which we all depend we must hand this country to our children

with this democracy and it is going to shape as when it was handed to us we simply have no choice because no one can be above the law and we must enforce that and now yield to the chairman of the foreign affairs committee just angle. thank you i'm eliot engel chairman of the foreign affairs committee for the last month we've been working in lockstep with the intelligence and oversight committees on this impeachment inquiry. so far we've seen damning evidence that the president abused his power and jeopardize our national security. to help his own political fortunes. he pressed for another round of foreign interference in american elections. it's what the framers feared the most. today we've laid the groundwork for the next open phase of this investigation. moving ahead the foreign

affairs committee will continue to support this effort because we know that the administration's abuse of power resulted in our foreign policy being subverted. and our diplomats being smeared sidelined and harassed we cannot stand for that i'm glad that the resolution we tacitly will provide for an open fair process that will allow the american people to hear from witnesses see the evidence and understand the troubling story of what the president and his allies did they deserve to know the facts and they soon will thank you. and now it's my pleasure to call on carolyn maloney the acting chair of the oversight committee thank you. and i will be brief and i have just 2 points 1st i want to commend my colleagues for their diligent work this is a very grave matter. as they have shown we are acting deliberative leave

thoroughly and without delay secondly i want to remind everyone of the words of our beloved former chairman eliza cummings and quote he said we are fighting for the soul of democracy in quote. that is our core mission under the constitution we cannot allow a president or any president to extort foreign countries into interfering with our democracy we cannot allow a president to withhold critical military aid that we have in congress provided in order to counter russian aggression and we cannot allow a president to ignore duly authorized the penis with held documents prevent witnesses from test testify covering up wrongdoing and obstructing congress and this is

a fundamental. corruption of the constitution and abuse of power and a breach of the oath of office that. q and i feel that now to the chairman of our caucus hakeem jeffries. i thank you congresswoman maloney i think the distinguished chairs for their diligent work throughout this process this is not a celebrate sorry moment here in the capital city this is a solemn moment it's a sober moment it's a serious moment. none of us came to congress to impeach this president or any president. but duty now requires that we investigate the serious wrongdoing that is hiding in plain sight

this is a moment for every single member of the house of representatives to put principle over the party to put the constitution above corruption to put democracy above dereliction of duty this is not a moment this impeachment inquiry is not about democrats versus republicans it's not about the left versus the right it's not about progressive versus conservatives the impeachment inquiry is about right versus wrong. and we have a constitutional responsibility to follow the facts apply the law be guided by the constitution and present the evidence of wrongdoing to the american people the impeachment inquiry is about abuse of power. it's

about betrayal. it's about corruption it's about national security. it's a mouth the integrity of our elections it's about the offending our democracy for the people but that i think i have an opportunity to take just a handful of questions to the 1st row and the chairman like to speak in light of all the information i get on testimony it's behind closed doors are you willing to expand its reach beyond the areas of the brain scan on are you also you share any of that with this is that like. well the process that has been set forth by speaker pelosi from the very beginning is that we are operating under an impeachment inquiry umbrella where there are 6 committees of relevant jurisdiction that will explore the wrongdoing that exists coming out of $1600.00 pennsylvania avenue and

at the end of the process make recommendations to the chair and the judiciary committee with a continued focus on the trunk ukraine scandal the abuse of power the solicitation of foreign interference in the 2020 election and that inquiry of course will continue to be led by chairman adam schiff and the intel committee because it relates to a matter of national security through $2.00 to $3.00 and then you question. we're not going to speculate on that now but we'll see what happens there are going to be any witnesses to find or we're not going to speculate on that now of you. know the resolution when we. expect to see is really. that you should really as chairman shifts and it depends on and the speed with the

speed with which things go there and i can't answer that question how crucial is john. i'm. ok you know. again you should ask chairman schiff that but obviously any testimony is very important testimony especially from someone so so located so crucially located. we are fighting for the soul of democracy a woods that of karen maloney chair of the oversight committee quote thing either. ok with have some issues here let's bring you up to speed have been hearing from a number of members of the house of representatives speaking about what happened today the vote in the house of representatives to endorse a process as a public process of impeachment that was overwhelmingly voted on we heard from jerry nadler the chairman of the judiciary committee saying no president can ask an

ally to help him against a political foe and that was a a sentiment that was repeated again and again by a number of members of the house of representatives and heads of committees that were speaking moments ago there let's go over now to our white house correspondent kimberly how she joins us live from washington is it fair to say that we've got quite an emboldened tone coming from house democrats. yeah that would be fair to say and i want to tell you that well there was a democratic press conference going on quite fitting for washington there was a republican press conference of similar nature going on and it struck me that this is a prime example of washington i was watching her in a split screen at the white house everybody's talking nobody's listening divided down the middle that would really be washington most of america and so well democrats perhaps have been emboldened republicans have been trying to counter the

message arguing that these proceedings that according to the party leaders have been in secret thus the process moving forward is tainted because already so many witnesses have testified without the president's defense counsel present in order to defend him so they call are calling this secret soviet style proceedings perhaps that is a buzzword they're hoping will pick up some traction in the american media but the bottom line is what they're trying to do is discredit it in the eyes of the american public moving forward and i have to tell you if you look at the polls the majority of americans while they may not like what's happened in the white house when it comes to the issue of removing president trump from office a majority still does not want to see that happen now it could be for selfish reasons there is low unemployment right now wages have started to rise it's those kitchen table issues that seem to be resonating with the americans how like so when you pull back from this this is a bit of a political gamble for both parties as they move forward we've got it alexion about

just a little more than a year away. it can really but we've been talking all the republicans with let's listen in to won't the house minority leader kevin mccarthy say we now found after the fact that adam shift and his staff actually met with the whistleblower the only person in this congress who knows who the whistleblower is is adam schiff the only person who is withholding the whistleblower from coming forward is that i'm sure. we look at the phone call for a quid pro quo somebody has to take an action for another there's nothing in that phone call that is wrong or impeachable. if you had the transcripts that we've been going for more than 3 weeks that no one's been able to read you would again go forward was wondering why this is moving forward no one is my understanding down there has ever said there was a quid pro quo for the same fear that hamilton said 100 more than

200 years ago is what watched came forth today so this isn't about the republican party this is about the republic no one should ever go through this again we believe in the rule of law but unfortunately in nancy's house we do not. every single day our government works with another government to solve cases but the president asked for was an open case that the attorney general was already investigating it is nothing about the future it's about something that happened it's something that the entire country wants to know and get to the bottom of that we had just gone through 2 years of a nightmare why did that happen wouldn't you want to know that answer even as a journalist i believe you would be craving to know the.