techno onal disease. this is 0. and this is the news hour live from coming up in the next 60 minutes. it is tragic that the president's reckless actions make impeachment necessary he gave us no choice preparing to make us this call history the house begins a debate that could see donald trump become only the 3rd u.s. president to be impeached. we'll talk a lot about a president we're going to talk about to order the impeachment abuse of power

because they can't actually pin anything a factual basis on you know the president did nothing wrong while republicans continue to stand by their president who has dismissed the move as an attempted coup. i mean taylor nandan with the rest of the top stories including lebanon's saad hariri says he will not seek to stay on as prime minister ahead of much to late talks to give the protest right country a new government. india supreme court postponed hearings against a new citizenship law to next month as anger against the legislation grows. well in just the past hour the final debate has got underway over whether to impeach the president of the united states democrats and republicans in the house of representatives on making their case about whether donald trump violated the

constitution he's accused. of withholding aid to ukraine to pressurize into investigating his political rival the democrat controlled house is expected to make trump the 3rd president to be impeached in u.s. history on trying has just called the process on social media an assault on america well democratic speaker of the house nancy pelosi opens that debate calling for both sides to put aside their partisanship and vote in the interest of the country it is tragic that the president's reckless actions make impeachment necessary he gave us no choice but we are discussing today is the established fact that the president violated the constitution is a matter of fact that the president is an ongoing threat to our national security and the integrity of our elections the basis of our democracy hundreds of historians legal scholars and former prosecutors but darla's of party had stated

that the president committed impeachable offenses while trans republican said that the democrats have been trying to impeach the president since he was elected we on the republican side have no problem taking our case to the majority and to the people of this country because they elected donald trump and it is a matter for the voters not this not in this way not in the way this is being done it is trampled everything this house believes and i said it yesterday and i believe it to be this true today i will fight this on process which has been deplorable to use the word of the majority it has been all for the calendar and the clock make it impressive that we actually do it quickly we don't care about rules we don't care about minority hearing days we don't care about giving the opportunity for witnesses to be called because the chairman gets to determine what is relevant. well in a moment we'll speak to white house correspondent candy how good but fast let's go to heidi castor he is on capitol hill where that vote will happen heidi we've been

seeing these really impassioned speeches on the hill today took us through what we've been hearing from both sides. sure so we're only about one hour into this the 6 hours established rules for the debate and it's been very contentious and of course partisan you heard from nancy pelosi who opened these debates saying that the president's reckless actions gave congress no choice but to proceed down this he spent and she said that the 1000 fathers of the country vision the republic that would not be under threat as it is from what she says as the ongoing national security risk that trumps actions poses now by the end of this evening we do expect this historic vote to take place and it's not a question of whether or not trump will be impeached democrats will hold the majority in the house of representatives certainly have the numbers to pass these articles of impeachment what we're looking at is how many democrats might defect

from their party caucus we know of at least one or 2 who have said that they will not vote to trump but there are no republicans who have said that they will so we expect this to go down very narrowly partisan lines and particularly we're looking at some of these democrats who represent districts that are conservative that actually voted for trump in the last presidential election and a handful of them have said that they've come off of the fence on this impeachment question and they have decided to vote to approve the impeachment explain the reasons they said it's because they feel compelled to hold their constitutional duty to oversee the president and they do this you know knowing full well that they may pay the political price with their constituents in their conservative districts castro. live for us on capitol hill we'll be talking to heidi a lot more today thank you heidi for now well let's now also go to committee health that is our white house correspondent kimberly you outside the white house and i

imagine the president is watching pretty closely inside i see that he's just tweeted in the last few minutes all in caps such atrocious lies by the radical left do nothing democrats this is an assault on america and an assault on the republican party so no surprises there i can really. well there's no surprise i guess that the president is defending himself in the strongest and most passionate of terms given the fact that the president put forward a 6 page letter on the eve of this vote making some of the very same points one of the other points that the white house press secretary has made in just the last hour as we can confirm the president is watching these proceedings we're told stephanie gresham telling reporters that he is doing that in between the meetings that he is conducting and that tweet that you just read a moment ago certainly indicative of how the president is reacting now in the midst

of all of this the president has also retreated one of his own tweets from earlier in the day where he said i did nothing wrong this should never happen to another president again say a prayer certainly the president maintains and has been making the argument repeatedly that this is a partisan coup a line that is in very clear in his 6 page letter to the house speaker nancy pelosi one that she responded calling sick this is a back and forth that has been taking place and the arguments being made by this president whether on twitter whether in his letter or whether by his defenders in the house of representatives is that it is motivated to try and undo the results of the 2016 u.s. election one that ultimately when the president is a peach then we believe that will happen later today that the voters will have the opportunity to weigh in on come november 2020 can be i say that the president has cleared his schedule for most of the day but then he's headed for the seemingly aptly named battle creek for

a rally. battle creek michigan yeah vattel creek is very fitting you're right and so is the state that he's going to given the fact that this is one of the swing states that helped decide the election back in 2016 and also notable is the fact that when we look at the poll numbers well the nation is divided in terms of whether or not to peach donald trump what we notice is that in these key battleground states michigan being one of them wisconsin is another and the 3rd what escapes me at the moment but the point is is that in those states support for the u.s. president is actually rising there is a push back on what many people are starting to call impeachment fatigue if you will and this campaign is certainly seizing on that donald trump will be leaving the white house later today he'll be going to battle creek and what we're setting up possibly is a very interesting split screen moment that really sums up where america is right

now because simultaneously as we see this vote potentially coming down on the other side of americans t.v. screens will be the hundreds even thousands of supporters who backed the president and are opposed to his impeachment committee halkett their white house correspondent thank you kimberly we'll leave it there for now and speak to cried wilcox he is a professor of government at georgetown university here in doha just picking up on something that kennedy was talking about there she was talking about impeachment fatigue is that and peter fatigue already i mean what we're just starting potentially a very long senate trial in january how is the public perceiving this whole process today who want to see a trial go forward you know the public is not paying a lot of attention because the details are complicated and too too obscure for the public to pay much attention to trump supporters are buying his line that he did nothing wrong but you know a motive a different world where donald trump was a different man where he could say i did something wrong where he could be like

bill clinton and say you know. as i had this phone call it seemed bright but now that i look at it it was over the line and then we didn't have republicans saying he did nothing wrong you know there's no republican in congress who really thinks he does nothing wrong here right in that kind of world it wouldn't be so divisive it wouldn't be so partisan but donald trump is never going to be that man he's going to go there and say they're trying to have a coup which of course is not what do you think that we might see him actually testify in the senate trial donald trump couldn't go 2 minutes without perjuring himself well setting that aside is there the room for any senators potentially to defect i know that everything's been so partisan in the house and you know we've seen only one republican house representative well it does that his party and become an independent in order to be able to vote differently on the impeachment what are we likely to see in the senate you know it's really hard to say but privately a lot of republican senators are voicing deep concern about this activity and about

other kinds of activity that's been going on in other countries someone mentioned earlier what if what could bolton say well bolton has been saying privately in washington that trump was pursuing business interests with turkey as part of the deal to withdraw all troops out of syria so if he said that publicly that would be a pretty big deal right. so if we would not have a secret ballot i gree on that but if they did many people would defect does anyone have the courage to actually vote that way i don't know maybe that romney maybe susan collins i don't know where the democrats are making this a real constitutional issue i mean nancy pelosi was incredibly reluctant to begin this process and the fast pace what's the political calculus now for republican senators because there are some moderate republicans some vulnerable republican senators who will have to take that into account going into an election so if you're thinking just politically right only can i be reelected then the core of the republican base is really supportive of donald trump people who are who have left

who don't support donald trump of left the party they're independents that become democrats so you would be really angry a core of the voters you have salute we need so that would be a really tough vote to take. but you know you're supposed to be an impartial jurors though well let me ask you about this there's one particular gentleman i believe who has had a meeting with donald trump last week and has decided to defect from the democratic party well to potentially well and a number of his stuff i believe it was they said that they will no longer work for him so is that the potential to go the other way in the senate as well that democratic senate is mine might leave now bukit imagine maybe joe manchin from west virginia voting against the conviction in the case of the house member from new jersey he was never going to win his democratic primary so this is a pretty easy call for him let me pick up one thing that we were talking about before the break and that is there are no crimes here one of the things that occurs

to me is that it's very surprising that the democrats didn't rely on the 2nd half of the moeller report which details at least there was a huge amount of debate about whether all that would be a fanatical right and there were 10 cases where he talked about criminal justice i thought 9 of them were pretty convincing you could have picked a few of those i'm a little surprised they've kept it so narrow but it has become very divisive for the democratic party and so this is potentially them playing it safe then i think i didn't say i think it would have been safer to a bond or bron blindly when so clyde wilcox professor at georgetown university here in doha we'll come back to you in a moment right now i want to take you to live pictures of capitol hill you're watching special coverage here on al-jazeera because the final debate has now gotten underway over whether want to encourage the president of the united states house speaker nancy pelosi in her opening remarks said that trumped by violation

the constitution gave lawmakers no choice but to pursue impeachment trump is facing charges of abusing his power and obstructing congress that impeachment voters is expected in the coming hours. passing callahan is in washington d.c. for us to talk more about the impeachment with a very special panel of a team. they see it welcome to washington it can't be overstated understated this is a historic day just the 3rd president facing the possibility of being impeached by the u.s. house of representatives have a great panel joining us to talk about this historic vote john malcolm he's the vice president of the institute for constitutional government at the heritage foundation that's a conservative think tank here in washington robinson woodward burns he's an assistant professor at howard university specializing const to the constitution and melanie sloan a former federal prosecutor and founding director of citizens for responsibility and ethics in government john i want to start with you thank you all for joining us

short john you don't think they he should be impeached why no for a variety of reasons in addition the fact that i don't think the facts warrant impeachment you know this is certainly been done in a very partisan manner i mean you know jerry natwar back in 1988 said the following he said carried out there for our audience doesn't know he's the chairman of the house judiciary committee and he said back in 1908 at the time of the clinton impeachment hearing quote there must never be a narrowly voted impeachment when impeachment is supported by one of our major political parties and opposed by the other such an impeachment will produce divisiveness and bitterness in our politics for years to come and will call into question the very legitimacy of our political institutions well at the end of the day today there is going to be a very partisan vote i don't think you're going to get any republicans voting in favor of impeachment and you're going to probably get one or 2 democrats crossing

over in fact and voting with the rebels of today here's the thing that's been really troubling for me being in washington there are 2 sets of facts right and we're going to spend 6 hours the house republican saying these are the facts. democrats saying these are the facts facts are actual actually facts are so true do you believe that it is a true that the president told the president of ukraine that basically he could have his that there was a quid pro quo you believe there was no facts are facts but how one interprets those facts is subject to reasonable differences and i have believed since the very beginning here that if you went into these hearings believing that the president was clearly undermining the national interests of the united states and he was doing so for a purely personal partisan reason to gain an advantage over a political rival then that is what you believe and your view is that impeach right then if that's true. if that were true that would arguably constitute

a gross abuse of office which would be an impeachable offense but the facts do not support that but we've had his own ambassador to the european union say there was a quid pro quo when it came to the white house visit everybody was it on it everybody knew about it and not a transcript but i will detail from the white house saying in the call you want to buy these missiles ok can you do us a very or though the president and not career diplomats within the state department get to determine what foreign policy is the president stated that he had 3 reasons why he was skeptical of ukraine one he has said on numerous occasions that he believes that the united states provides too much foreign aid to other countries in general ok he didn't just he didn't do this with ukraine until joe biden i think i get well 1st of all even if that were true and i'm not sure that is true the president said that he had 2 concerns about ukraine which were presented as false

narratives by career diplomats one is that he was concerned about potential ukrainian interference in the 2016 election and 2 he was concerned about whether or not the ukrainians had truly turned over a new lead in about investigating corruption with that in country within that country and that includes prisma and that includes joe biden who was at the time the vice president of the united states during the obama administration and if there is a factual predicate that would support that investigation and i believe there was the president is fully within his power to ask a foreign government to assist with that investigation into corruption melanie are there 2 sets of facts here there are 2 sets of fact there's only one set of facts and that is that the president asked that aide be that u.s. aid be held up until the lenski announced an investigation of hunter by he didn't even care if there was an actual investigation he just wanted them to announce one and i don't think that the republicans are very much focused on the fact that the facts really aren't helping them here which. why they keep talking about the

process they go over and over that this is an unfair process again also leaving out that part of the reason that it is quick and that there has been less testimony is because the administration is stonewalling congress has refused to put people before has refused to hand over any documents and has not allowed its top officials to testify but bilinear formal for former federal prosecutor there is an argument that the democrats could have waited for the courts to weigh in they already have at least in the case of done again and said there is no blanket executive privilege these people have to go before congress this is a legitimate subpoena why not wait isn't that pretty much just about the politics of the 'd election i think there's no question that they could have waited and they could have gone to court but that would have taken an exceedingly long time and they were as nancy pelosi has had very worried about the integrity of the american electoral system and what's going to happen in the 2020 election and they didn't feel like they could any longer wait while republicans just tried to stymie and stonewall any investigation roberts and one of the things i think is interesting

point the republicans keep making is that this is going to set a precedent that we're going to enter a time when every president gets impeached is that a legitimate concern the constitution gives the house broadly way to understand what sort of impeachable offenses president menem and all have committed in the senate of course 30 to try because it is intentionally left to the legislature to determine the process now we do have an increasingly polarized partisan scene in which it is possible that this could happen again but it is consistent with the constitutional structure we have to allow congress to determine whether an offense is impeachable or not let's look ahead because i think everybody knows what's going to happen the house is going to vote to impeach donald trump the only 3rd president to actually have that put next to his name in the history books for all for all eternity but the senate that's the wild card here they have to take an oath that they will be impartial butt. we've already seen the senator mitch mcconnell come

out and say yeah we're not going to have witnesses were we're not going to be impartial he's not going to be a heat how do you square that job as a constitutional expert and knowing what the precedent is and where we're supposed to be with where we're going to sure for some by the way i'm also a former federal prosecutor and at some point i would like to address something that that melanie just said but i'll go directly to your question which is the constitution gives the house of representatives the sole power to impeach and it gives the senate the sole power to try impeachments there have already been a ton of witnesses who have been called the house has been able to call or they were impatient and not waiting until the courts had ruled wall of the witnesses whom they wish to call them know they know how 12 and the subpoenas were rejected by the white house 1st of all they subpoenaed john bolton and when john bolton went to court they withdrew the subpoena in addition to that but they had actually been winning at the lower level of the federal courts but in their rush to get this done

they are not prepared to let you can legitimately say that they they were allowed to testify mick mulvaney the acting chief of staff of the president everyone who would have firsthand knowledge was not allowed to talk saw give you another quote this comes from an office of legal counsel opinion from the department of justice issued by the holder justice department july 15th 2014 the executive branch's longstanding position reaffirmed by numerous administration to both political parties is that the president's immediate advisers are absolutely immune from congressional testimonial process this immunity is rooted in constitutional separation of powers and the immunity of the president himself and compress congressional compulsion to testify if the house if the house democrats wanted to push that in court which they did have done from all the cheney they could do that for bolton they could do that any number of these witnesses was about all of a sudden. say abuse of congress i mean if we are now going to be impeaching presidents

who has served in executive privilege in response to a congressional subpoena then every president from now until the end of time will end up being impeached because if that's an impeachable offense every president has done what he said he has harassed a fair idea what the courts overruled that well i would i'm out of here curious about here is that the refusal to turn over any documents and that is not in fact within their purview within their power executive privilege is executive privilege if the executive branch demanded these documents from congress congress would be screaming that they don't have to turn we've just had a revelation from a federal judge who said there is no blanket executive privilege a federal district court judge that has announced until it does yes and you have an appeal process and the president is avail themselves of an appeal and rather than wait until that appeal process works its way out and then letting the process play out the democrats have as to if instead said no we're going to claim that we were absolutely title to this but you know any problems at the present deserted is

a bunch of bunk and we're going to impeach him for it that is outlandish in the extreme now the answer to the question that you asked which is it is up to the house to bring charges they can bring those charges however they want to bring charges it is not up to the senate to make up for deficiencies that occurred in the in the investigation process in the house of representatives and the senate will decide after horse trading i assume the precise parameters of what that trial will look like right now and i will let you weigh in on this but 1st robinson you're the constitutional expert here is there supposed to be a trial in the senate and this excuse that we keep hearing from republicans is the house had their shot they didn't get it we're we're not responsible for actually find in evidence. what does the constitution say are they responsible for having a trial they are the constitution gives fairly broad leeway for the house and senate to interpret their duties the actual impeachment clauses are fairly brief and one of the ways we can understand the process is through federalist papers 65

in which hamilton describes it as a political process and that doesn't mean a partisan one but a legislative one this is the way that the house and senate can check them executive the executive oversteps it's part of the separation of power system we use now that separation of powers requires that both chambers able to broadly interpret the process as work and the senate will likely draw in rules that came out of the andrew johnson impeachment of $86768.00 and probably followed that longstanding historical precedent and there still what does that look like is there going to be an actual trial if they were to go back to the 800 the trial works a bit differently from what we might think of as a conventional trial members of the house are those who explain the charges against the president and senators as an impartial jury it requires 2 thirds majority to remove the president so it's a bit different from a trial way we think of it but it is a clearly explained process at least through the precedent we have ok so melanie do you think that there's going to be

a trial do you do you want to respond to his argument that the president's been transparent he has exactly the executive privilege of the president clearly hasn't been transparent at all have as i said they've been stonewalling the investigation refusing to turn over documents there ben interest groups that have been able to go to court and get documents from the administration through the freedom of information act litigation that think that the state department for example has refused to turn over to congress themselves you have to look at this more like the house was if we put it in more common parlance like the grand jury and you get witnesses before the grand jury and then you bring the matter over to the senate for actually a full blown trial so this idea that because the house already called anybody that they should there be no additional witnesses in the senate is actually. kind of crazy if we look at our regular criminal justice system oh there are witnesses brought before a grand jury and then when you have a trial there are witnesses brought at trial the reason that we're not going to have witnesses at trial is because senator mitch mcconnell the majority leader doesn't want any he doesn't want there to be this spectacle in the senate he knows

it will hurt the republican party he knows that if mick mulvaney and john bolton come and testify truthfully about what they knew about this whole matter it will go very badly for the president and mitch mcconnell has already as malcolm has as i said as appreciate the outcome and they want this to be over as quickly as possible they don't want any more bad facts for the president but here's i think what's getting lost in the american media which a connal doesn't have the final say there are 4 senate republicans that are retired they don't have to worry about being primaried there are other senators all it takes is for republican senators to vote with the democrats and say no we want to hear from john bolton who has sent a lot of signals that he's ready to basically burn the house down so what's the likelihood for republicans say no we're going to have a trial 1st well 1st of all again the senate gets to define the parameters of the trial this is not like a standard criminal trial during the clinton impeachment proceedings trial there

would be no lot of witnesses who were exurbs of videotaped depositions i don't know at the end of the day whether there will be a lot of witnesses called there had been a whole bunch of people who testified on camera in front of the house intelligence committee and deposition transmission with i understand let me let me finish i don't know whether john bolton will testify i don't know whether mick mulvaney will testify and if they do they are wild cards same thing with hunter biden same thing with the whistleblower same thing with adam schiff these are all unknowns melanie is very confident that this will not go so well for the republicans i'm not so i'm not as competent a she is that that is so overly think john bolton's going to come and say everything was i don't know what on olson is going. after the 5 will not know what john bolton is going to say it's very clear that he left on bad terms but he also is aware of the fact that he was the national security advisor and the national security adviser advises the president and it is up to the president to make those

decisions so i don't know what john bolton will say of call to testify and i don't know that he will be called to testify and if he is it's a gamble on both sides we know they heard i had i had to i just look like you know i didn't like i had john bolton we have heard numerous people say that he said that you know he didn't want to be i be part of that drug deal that sunderland was cooking up and he definitely had the view that what was happening was a problem fiona hill has testified about that is how it is clear john bolton is writing a book about this he has made it clear that he has things to say and that they would indeed be damaged so he does have things to say in fact he went with his attorney into court and said i want the court to tell me i'm having one side that's given me a subpoena another side is it sort of executive privilege you tell me what to say at that point the house democrat said never mind and they withdrew their subpoena now they want to hear from him again and i am sure that he will say some things that will be damaging to to the president he may also have a thing or 2 to say that would be damaging to the democrats and regardless of what

it is the president does indeed have a legitimate ability to be able to decide whether he had a jaundiced view of ukraine and at the end of the day i would remind people of i know many will say that this was only because he had been uncovered try do not believe that the president not only will lease the $391000000.00 after all as a military state and after the vice president and the bar partisan group of senators had come to meet him in the white house and it said there was strong support for ukraine and we believe the president selenski as everybody knew about the blower about it everybody knew that this investigation was going to start but we're going to have tests to talk about this more as the day proceeds because this coast here it is going to go on forever so for now from washington john welcome robinson woodward burns melanie sloan thank you. so much for joining us we will are you again in just a couple of hours hopefully respectfully and by teaching people of you things about what's going on a lot to get to today again a historic day it's really just the beginning and to see what happens in the senate

that's where the real fireworks go to have the vote for an element to toss it back to doha thanks very much patty will be going back to her little bit later on this evening but for now you are watching special coverage here on al-jazeera as that final debate continues over whether to impeach the president of the united states donald trump is facing charges of abusing his power and obstructing congress that impeachment vote is expected in the next few hours and we'll bring that to you live as it happens but to other news now and lebanon's caretaker prime minister saad hariri says he's not putting himself forward as a candidate to lead the new government for more in-depth coverage of this story and others from across the globe let's cross to loren and the whole team in london as our european broadcast center thanks to his statement comes a day before formal consultations a set to take place between the president and parliamentary blocs to designate the next leader hariri resigned as prime minister in october or in weeks of nationwide protests against the country's ruling elite demonstrations accuse the government of

rampant corruption and according for a complete overhaul of the post civil war secular political system rami khouri is a senior public policy fellow and professor of journalism at the american university of beirut he joins us now from cambridge in massachusetts thanks very much for being with us so how significant is it that hariri is not going to be a candidate. well he's done this several times before e's announced his candidacy that said he's not going to be a candidate than it was working by this and so prove the candidate so with these leaders who are now part of the old only got kicked system that has ruled lebanon for many decades you never know what is the real significance of what they are doing one thing is clear though there is a new element in the political arena and it's the element of massive opulence pressure on the streets against the political traditional owner of the arctic sectarian leadership and maybe heady it is decision now because he said in the last

week that he was expecting to be prime minister he started insulting people maybe his decision now actually means more than it would have meant before because he probably is aware that the popular sentiment among the protesters on the street is that he would not be acceptable because part of the old system that has failed and has backed up the country and sent half the population into poverty so probably has decision is more meaningful he will he opens the stage now for real consultations among the parliamentarians but also among different political groupings and the country and this is really unprecedented in lebanon but even if they do find a replacement candidate that they can set coalesce behind as you mention that the weight of and the demonstrators seems to be in favor of completely getting rid of the system entirely hasn't it and and having it technocrats govern how likely are they to achieve as much as that. i think the technocratic government is very likely in fact that it is said he would have a government of technocrats and but he as

a traditional politician would be the prime minister the sentiment on the street as against that and he seems to have bowed to it the likelihood of a candidate for prime minister who is acceptable both to the traditional political elites as well as to the demonstrators on the street that i think is likely to happen there are many really good people in lebanon who are acceptable to both sides but what it represents is a substantive shifts and how power is exercised at the highest levels in lebanon and no longer do the political oligarchs meeting and close smoke filled rooms make these decisions and then just go to parliament for a perfunctory sokol consultation which is really not a consultation at all they've already made the decisions this is different and this is really the significance of what's going on now we don't know how it's going to end there may be more violence against the protesters as there has been on and off

in the last few days you may have the police on the army protecting the demonstrators you may have them driving them out of the public squares as happened once or twice there's all kinds of new elements on the street it would ing so that's by some of the political groups what the political role of the army and security will be in terms of protecting the protesters or not how the protesters will need the old guard halfway in accepting a peep prime minister who's not a technocrat but is except about the old guard these are all new elements and they really were seeing that history in the making rami khouri thank you very much and if you have time thank you. and it is attorney general has ordered the arrest of former president evan maraniss on charges of sedition and terrorism arise resigned and left libya in november after protests and allegations of irregularities in the country's election which saw him return to power he fled the country from mexico since friend to argentina where he's been granted asylum he says the protests which forced him from office up to me 40 is part of

a right wing coup. india's ukraine court has postponed all herring's challenging a controversial citizenship law until next month as being widespread anger over the new legislation which offer citizenship to persecuted minorities from neighboring countries and excludes muslims asaram raman reports from christian i in the north east instead of as sam a court delay means countless families and now living in limbo. it's a sleepy village in the middle of a sam's agricultural belt people who live here in christianized hindus and muslims yet all may soon be doomed undocumented migrants so darn sarka is a pensioner he was born and has lived in the region for as long as he can remember a big old speaking hindu he says this is home and he's indian but a recent government census deemed him and his family illegal migrants from bangladesh he was arrested and placed in a detention center for 3 years. released on bail he says his experience was

traumatic and has led to complex medical issues and psychological disorders. we would break for roll call it 6 wash have a cup of tea and do a little exercise and then they would lock us up to be in the room was not large enough and we slept on the floor about what do you 5 hours to a room some time ago not to be fed until the next day. he shows me documents that date back to the 1930 s. proving on the surface that his family has always lived in india the bengali originating in do and muslim communities here in krishna number around about 400 families and they've lived here for decades living alongside each other in peace and of course working the paddy fields here you can see behind me but the passage of the citizenship amendment could very well undermine their very existence and render some of them stateless. the new law potentially allows anyone fleeing

communal riots or religious persecution to apply for indian citizenship but siddhartha and some of his neighbors can't apply because the government does not recognise their status high court lawyers like hafiz child rio waiting to see how the supreme courts rule on the controversial legislation now it is all an act of the past but the parliament so that it wants it also with all the labels can see how to get the benefit of those but what i was formally didn't look mention here. for the indigenous people of the new legislation is worrying they say it'll make them a minority in their own state by giving citizenship to him to refugees and then we'll have a. district in the region have seen violence again and been speaking families their business have been burnt down and there'd been economic loss but tangherlini or loss of life on this occasion the bengali hindu speaking community is scared.

sudan's future is still uncertain his family's meager earnings revolve around the production of these plastic bags and the status of his family like those in the village of krishna i might not be made clear for some time. so he'll run with al-jazeera some. a number of civilians have been killed in the latest round of russian and syrian government attacks on rebel held areas of northwestern syria shelling an asse trikes and province have escalated in recent weeks it or again the reports. of the attacks only they probably are relentless they're intensifying and witnesses say the majority of victims are civilians the paramedics notice the white helmets of their within minutes to do what they've done thousands of times during the war try to save the lives of civilians. out of a good mood at about 11 o'clock in the morning

a fighter jet believed the russian carried out 6 successive air raids in the med johnny and yoked in areas they targeted displaced people living in tents one girl was killed and 6 others injured in critical condition are rushed to hospital the civil defense cristal combing the area searching for survivors. the damage was one of $35.00 villages hit by russian and syrian government forces in italy province in the last $48.00 ounce opposition activists say president bashar al assad's government appears to be preparing for a ground offensive its aim is to secure the main highway linking the capital damascus with the northern city of aleppo the increase in attacks is having a devastating impact on people here this man's wife and 3 daughters were killed in an ass strike 4000000 syrians live in adelaide provence which is under the control of hyatt therea al sham an armed group with formal links to al qaeda the strikes on the northwestern province are in breach of the deescalation deal russia and turkey

agreed last september but the syrian government says recapturing the province is just a matter of time victoria gates and be al jazeera. before her armed fighters have killed at least 14 civilians and injured 5 others during a raid in chad the attack happened at a camp of fisherman on the banks of lake chad of the region has seen attacks from their own group for around 10 years with more than $30000.00 people killed former british prime minister tony blair has delivered a scathing speech on labour's recent election defeat saying repace will be finished if it continues with the politics of leader jeremy corbyn there is edging moderates to grab back control of the party which won just 203 seats in last week's election its worst result for more than 80 years the takeover of the labor party by the far left turned it into a glorified protest movement with cult trimmings absolutely incapable of being

a credible government the result was brought shame on us we let our country down to go into an election at any time with such a divergence between party and people is that acceptable to do it at a time of national crisis when a credible opposition is so essential to the national interest isn't forgivable those who community near london for this are now expected no stars in doha. thank you very much for that lauren let's revisit our top story now in just the past hour the final debate has gotten underway over whether or not to impeach the president of the united states vice president mike pence is at a rally in michigan where donald trump is expected to arrive in the coming hours and he the written off the impeachment as a failed political attack. let's have it on capitol hill today is a disgrace you know the truth is they're trying to impeach this president because they know they can't defeat this president. they're trying to run down this

president because they know they can't run against our record they can't run against our results they're pushing this partisan impeachment because they know they can't stop you from giving president donald trump for more years in the white house. let's bring in 2 experts now to help us break down all that's happening in washington shorty will talk to philip bobbitt who is the associate counsel to the office of the president under president casa he's in new york that fast let's cross over to allan barron he's a former special impeachment counsel to the house of representatives and he joins us now from washington d.c. thank you for joining us mr barron we just had pence that talk about this as being a failed political attack that this is really just the beginning isn't it talk us through what happens from here well is just the beginning we will get a vote in the full house. to whether these articles of impeachment that have come

out of the judiciary committee will be passed by no one has to be passed by a simple majority one vote and then they will be marched over to the senate presented to the senate as and read to the senate in the senate chamber which will be one of the few times you see the chamber with $100.00 senators sitting at attention and. if the reading the articles of impeachment the probably the majority leader will say thank you very much we'll get back to you when we're ready and then the managers for the house will leave and go back. i want to bring in mr bobbitt here who is that former white house lawyer mr bob that we've been talking through a little bit about the process here and we've been talking about it for some hours now is this this impeachment process that we're watching unfold before us is this what the founding fathers had in mind when they wrote that section of the constitution. really not. just

because the founding fathers were so concerned that. public opinion and partisan loyalties would distract the senate from its duty to try the case in a juror tickle fashion. going to go back to allan baron mr barron i understand you've been involved in the impeachment and removal before federal judges and we've just had mr bobbitt there say that this is potentially not exactly the process that way that the founding fathers intended the trials that you were involved in presumably they weren't quite as partisan but in your mind what's the threshold of proof here that's required in the senate to remove a president. that's that's a very interesting question it came up literally before the senate in the 1st impeachment that i handled the lawyer representing the judge who was being impeached argued that the proof should be beyond

a reasonable doubt which is the standard for a criminal case. the senate actually. the against the phrases they punted because what they said of eventually is it is up to each and every senator does decide for himself or herself what standard of proof they would require and so it's wide open up to each senator to pick the standard that they're most comfortable with is it really let's assume it has to talk about preferred evidence when really we're looking at at ultimately what's become incredibly partisan process and is there actually a trial that will take place or are we really going through the motions here and that that really defines a very divided nation well that's a very good question is to go back to the clinton impeachment trial if we go back to the clinton impeachment trial most trial lawyers would not recognize that proceeding as true trial there were no live witnesses they just read testimony into

the record it was a very peculiar. type of proceeding it's hard to tell what we're going to get here i think that they would be wise to have some live testimony but the senate is going to control this and they may not want live testimony they just go on the record and that will be it mr bobbitt i know you want to jump in there so i'm going to let you let you jump in what did you want to add though i think we i think. put it to well i just said it's just too soon to say the the final decisions will be made by. mature adults 'd very experienced political people according to their own consciences that's true for george not just in criminal cases but in civil cases mediators. we won't really know probably until the autobiographies come out and just what

a struggle each person went through while speaking of the charges that the trump is facing we've we've had some pretty vitriolic reaction from president trump himself and i just want to remind everyone of his latest tweet all in caps such atrocious lies by the radical left do nothing democrats this is an assault on america and an assault on the republican party midst of all that do you see this as an assault on america is this really just a process this is a constitutional process that was meant to be in place for specifically this reason i think the president's tactic is to assert that while there may be a few people on the radical left or the other radical division of the spectrum who detest him personally and want to reverse the his election as president he wants to take that. trope and apply 'd it to the entire movement to

enforce the law where we're presently his trench gusted and it may work i don't know but i can't imagine anyone who is not already a partisan the president reading a tweet like that and saying the scales have dropped my eyes now see this for what it is it's really just. just crazy. mr barron i'm going to ask you about president tom's reaction to all of this and how that's playing out within the senate because there are some vulnerable senators heading into this election year who potentially may not entirely agree with him him so what do you make of the proceedings now once we have this vote today and we assume that it will then go to the senate trial where where does this play out how how does senators decide where they sit well the senate seems very locked in to support the president though the republicans are locked in there may be 2 or 3 who

might waver or they may vote to acquit but make a speech saying that it's a very close question for them but it's not going to be a close vote in the senate given the fact that you need a 2 thirds majority in order to convict i think it's very we have to remember help political the whole process is notice that in the house the voters are all politicians and in the senate it sits as a kind of jury and yet they are all politicians so it has a pretty you know being a court type proceeding but it's really not it is very political and in that's respect we have to expect a lot of partisanship well speaking of all that partisanship there has been this partisan debates ahead of that senate trial about potential witnesses being called and we've talked about this a little bit but there are potentially explosive witnesses that both sides want to call but the democrats and the republicans how does that process where kind of stand you have to have a majority in order to call

a witness who we like to likely to actually see testify. as to whether or not my whole year is going to jordan to establish i'm going to go to mr barron fast and then and then we'll go to mr card us please. my suspicion is we're not going to see any witnesses because once the republicans open up the door they don't want john bolton on the stand they don't want mick mulvaney on the stand now some people have said well you know we don't know what john bolton is really going to say or mulvaney he's going to say look the thing is from the democrats' point of view in the senate they have nothing to lose i mean the thing is cooked ahead of time given the majority that the republicans have and that the 2 thirds vote requirement so what do they have to lose if i were making the judgment for the democrats sure let's call bolton he's got something on his mind let's hear what it is but i don't think any of them are going to actually testify mr bobbitt

what do you make of all this what other sounds right i think i will burn has predict what will happen i would be surprised although i would like to see there be more witnesses one thing i would. like to dissent from is about the political nature of the process that may be a an apt description of where we are now and the fact that the senate is composed of politicians may inevitably skew in the direction that that is not the way the process was intended and there are extensive discussions in the federalist papers notably about how the senate can sit in a jury to call rather than in a political fashion some people say well why was the senate chosen that and so the supreme court and the reason of that is as we're told in the federalist will swear is that a president can be tried for a crime after he's impeached and the framers feared that the appeal from a conviction would go to the supreme court who would then have to recuse themselves

this is all laid out in some detail in our framing but we're a long way from that now. mr barron let me ask you about the timing of this because by all accounts this has been pretty speedy with the democrats trying to push this impeachment vote through before christmas and then while we know that mitch mcconnell has said that he wants a speedy senate trial what do you make of the speed of all of this and is that typical for an impeachment process you've been involved in so many well when you're talking about you know typical it's very hard but each one is kind of unique in its own way i think that the republicans would like to get this you know one and done get it and get it over with it's certainly not helpful for them politically to keep this thing lingering before the the american public the democrats from a strategic point of view might want to drag it out as long as possible because.

right up down to kill the bill the vote in november this is going to be probably not very helpful for the republican candidates i will say this there is a notion going around i don't know whether it's going to come to fruition or not but there is a notion going around that the democrats will vote the articles of impeachment and consider not delivering them to the senate there is nothing in the constitution that says you must deliver the articles and keep the articles a law if continue to investigate and not send them over to the senate where they are likely to receive a quick and speedy death so what would then happen if they decided not to send the articles of impeachment to the senate which is what we're assuming would happen if they choose not to do that what would be the process from them is that the end of. not at all store said they would in the venue which is we're talking about. exactly

mr ball the i think it would be fascinating to see that happen. i apologize i there are there is a delay between all of the different between our different locations but i would like to thank boast of both of our guests and that's alan baron who's speaking to us from washington d.c. and philip ball that he's speaking to us from new york will be coming back to you shortly but right now i want to take us all back to capitol hill where these are live pictures from the house of representatives where the final debate is currently underway over whether or not to impeach the president of the united states house speaker nancy pelosi and her opening remarks said that trump by violating the constitution gave lawmakers no choice but to push you impeachment trump is facing charges of abusing his power and of obstructing congress and their investigation that impeachment vote is expected in the coming hours but for now let's have a listen to the debate that is ongoing it's expected to go for about 6 hours where only about a 3rd of the way in so far looking at documents sitting in the hearings and you

know the clues in that guy from all of that this impeachment is a total joke and a total sham and let me tell you one of the reasons why i think that all of those witnesses the 17 witnesses that the democrats brought forward not one single one of them was able to establish that president trump committed bribery treason high crimes or misdemeanors which is required in the u.s. constitution. and again 17 out of 24 democrat members on judiciary committee voted on this floor to move forward articles of impeachment before the phone call and 5 out of 9 rule committee democrat members did the same thing so if the main part of your

impeachment is the call why did you vote for impeachment prior to the call i also want to remind the american public and others that for 2 years adam schiff claimed he had proof that president trump have colluded with russia that turned out to be faults and then overnight it was obstruction of justice then quid pro quo then bribery then extortion and the list goes on but yet not one of those is listed in the articles of impeachment to my democrat colleagues madam chair i say please stop tearing the country apart stop this sham and i yield back the. gentleman from new york the generally correct. well that's it for me

for this news hour you said watching our special coverage of the final debate over whether or not to impeach u.s. president donald trump to stay with us here on al-jazeera i'll be back very shortly . what was the last thing the president said to you about impeachment when you last spoke to him for os multicultural society it's not at all you. think dumbing allegation that was always a good term how worried are you that the conditions are still right for another i think they are right join me man the hot sun as i put up from questions to my special guests and challenge them to some straight talking political debate here on

al-jazeera. a football tournament like no other than at the beginning we used to play football in the streets using a soccer al-jazeera world meets a group of sudanese boys determined to win against a backdrop of conflict and uncertainty. when i walk in the street people soft me oh man it's because of. darfur put both

a piece on al-jazeera. this is al-jazeera. hello again i'm a and this is the news hour live from coming up in the next 60 minutes. it is tragic that the president's reckless actions make impeachment necessary he gave us no choice preparing to make a u.s. political history the house begins a debate that could see donald trump become only the 3rd u.s. president to be impeached. we don't talk a lot about president.