al-jazeera. democrats in congress formally begin the process of impeaching donald trump calling him a threat to america. threats of armed protests prompts unprecedented security measures and the approval of an emergency declaration in washington. but i'm down in jordan this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up the u.s. puts cuba back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism a move that could frustrate future attempts by joe biden to provide peace with family plus. i brought items to cut down

a city famed for its speaker seculars sites but medical professionals of the costing dog days they hate this kill the county for the galaxy writes it to record hogs. we begin in the united states where the final days of donald trump's presidency are setting the stage for a tense transition to the incoming administration of president elect joe biden the u.s. house of representatives has introduced an article of impeachment against trump for his role in inciting a mob that storm the capitol building last week al-jazeera is how does a castro has more on the growing calls for transfer movie. this is the insurrection that president trump is accused of fueling as alleged in the single article of impeachment introduced to congress on monday incited by president trump the article reads members of the crowd he had addressed unlawfully breached

and vandalized the capitol injured and killed law enforcement personnel menaced members of congress the vice president and congressional personnel and engaged in other violent deadly destructive and seditious acts this doesn't mean trump has been impeached that would take a house vote likely to happen wednesday close to a majority of house members have said they'll vote yes in a move that would make trump the only u.s. president to be impeached twice. the impeachment would then move to the senate where trump would go on trial given that his term ends a week from wednesday the trial would be after trump leaves office a conviction requiring the vote of at least 17 republican senators what bar him from holding future office impeachment and conviction at this rate would serve the purpose of keeping him from running again in 2024 and that would be

a significant safety event so i don't think this is pure theater house resolution 20 house democrats are also trying to push out trump sooner claiming each day he's in office is a danger to the country but a republican objection monday quickly delayed that effort i object to the resolution demanding vice president mike pence invoke the 25th amendment to immediately remove trump from office will return to the floor tuesday pence is unlikely to oblige one reason his own presidential ambitions and other concern about further inflaming the radicalism of some trump supporters the f.b.i. is warning that armed groups are planning to travel to washington to incite more violence and respond if pence invokes the 25th amendment to remove trump from office soldiers now stand guard outside the u.s. capitol with between 10 and 15000 national guard troops expected here by saturday

my scared if i'm scared of anything it's for our democracy because we have a very extreme factions in our country that are armed and dangerous. the district's mayor has asked for a pre emergency disaster declaration ahead of joe biden's inauguration to further facilitate security planning but the person who must grant the declaration is trump himself the man holed up and isolated inside the white house as his presidency takes away and the calls for his removal rage louder. castro al-jazeera washington meanwhile a leaked f.b.i. memos warning of ahmed protests in washington d.c. and across all 50 us states in the days leading up to joe biden's inauguration the bureau has told state and local law enforcement agencies to prepare for violence by right wing groups from sunday until biden's inauguration day as groups associated with the so-called boogaloo movement are planning to storm state capitals and other

government buildings. with those threats mounting security in washington d.c. is being stepped up a week earlier than planned president trump has approved an emergency declaration for the capital until january 24th the national guard is deploying up to 15000 soldiers well one of the people meant to be coordinating that inauguration day security has resigned homeland security secretary chad wolf told his department he was stepping down more now from mike hanna in washington d.c. . there was an internal memorandum distributed to f.b.i. offices across the country that was leaked to the media in which the f.b.i. was warning that it has information of acts of violence being planned in all 50 of the us states during this inauguration period so clearly this a very dire warning from the f.b.i. although it has not been made public i've repeated was a leaked document that the media obtained the issue at the moment with that

resignation and that's the acting secretary of homeland security mark chad wolf has announced his resignation he is not linking it directly to last wednesday's events but wolf has stepped up the security around the inauguration by extending the secure period from the 2 days around the inauguration to a media starting immediately that is over the next 10 days so essentially what this means is that the secret service will take over as point organization for security during this inaugural period it will be the secret service that will coordinate with other branches of federal government to ensure security and also very very clearly much greater planning going into this looming organized inauguration then there was for what happened last wednesday where very clearly there was very little planning in terms of the threat that had been posed online and by various organizations even before those events took place at the capitol the trumpet

administration has designated cuba a state sponsor of terrorism a statement from secretary of state mike pompei o said cuba had repeatedly harbored terrorists the designation subjects cuba to new sanctions on exports and limits u.s. foreign assistance in 2015 then president barack obama to cuba off the blacklist to normalize relations at augusta reports now from havana. this announcement by the trumper ministration today is transparently motivated by domestic political and. the primary reason that doing it is to make it more difficult for 'd the incoming by the administration to normalize relations with the cuban government. wants and needs normalize relations with the u.s. and it's no secret that the biden administration has of course joe biden as president who was involved in the negotiations. with which you go back in 201415

and many on the transition team have experienced because they too have accused this is something of a time bomb none of this tells you to get in the way and make it more difficult for the organization to proceed i'm looking down the press statement that was published today by the state department was instructive there are lots of true things that a state says she but yes does support does does harbor. north americans to some extent violence some of that's supposed to lend itself harbor them to the spanish lumbee unless we have a group however all of these people all the happy all the so many many decades. nothing has changed during the station to justify. this notion of the keepers of power is a more supportive nation is that it gets better so that you're just even on the road. old short so historical role. the u.s. is also preparing to designate yemen's who are the rebels as a terror group in response to who these declared it's america that's the source of

terrorism aid groups warn the blacklisting could have catastrophic consequences in a country already suffering the world's worst humanitarian crisis is on the shelf. 27 people were killed in this attack on audience airport last month as the newly formed yemeni government arrived to the. united states said those responsible must be held accountable and although the who the said they weren't to blame secretary of state mike pompei oh has announced he will designate the who these as a foreign terrorist organization and abdul malik out who theon 2 of their leaders as terrorists. nearly 6 years into the war the who does remain in control of a 3rd of the country home to 80 percent of the population that's despite an air and ground campaign led by saudi arabia and the united arab emirates and the local forces they control the who these frequently staged cross border attacks on saudi

infrastructure and commercial shipping the civilians sometimes caught in the middle . the situation on the ground is perilous more than 230000 people have been killed in the war the u.n. says 10000000 others are at risk of famine. and aid agencies fear the u.s. decision will push even more of the population toward starvation. $4.00 and $5.00 yemenis now depend on aid much of which comes through the hoop the controlled airport in sana'a and the port of her data pump aoe says waivers will be available for the delivery of food and medicines but there's real concern about the impact on both the humanitarian crisis and the economy some of the impacts that we're seeing at prices which are already extremely high could go up. in court and he starts getting hit in the face of the sanctions already at the world's worst humanitarian crisis it was already a situation where. are struggling to and. millions are found and

warnings have just resurfaced so this is really if i were talking i efforts by the world food program have held off famine for now the u.s. food agency won the nobel peace prize for its work keeping millions alive in yemen and many other areas where there are wars and conflicts executive director david beasley told al jazeera last month that u.s. officials know exactly how difficult they're making their work we'll do whatever we need to do we always have whether the sages are designations or not we'll do what we can to reach the people our job is to let the leaders understand clearly what will be the ramifications and what the difficulties that will be for us to reach the people yemen is already in a sri millie volatile fragile state with i can't begin to tell you we are on the brink of famine right now in yemen but there may be hope the washington post reports that president elect biden's foreign policy team is against the move to designate the who these as terrorists and there may be

a change once he's in office and al jazeera. well in its final weeks the trumpet ministration has announced a series of major foreign policy moves that could complicate president elect joe biden's time in office last month the u.s. recognized morocco's sovereignty over the disputed western sahara it's seen as a concession to redact for normalizing ties with israel on saturday the u.s. ease decades old restrictions on official contacts with taiwan angering china which considers it part of its territory and on sunday as you mentioned earlier there the u.s. secretary of state might pompeo said washington will classify yemen's the rebels as foreign terrorists are less than 24 hours later pompei announced putting cuba back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism let's bring in p.j. crowley he's a former u.s. assistant secretary of state for public affairs he joins us via skype from alexandria in virginia p.j. crowley we've seen the trumpet ministration make a series of these big last minute foreign policy changes on issues like taiwan

yemen cuba why now and is this all about domestic politics do you think. well i think in 2 cases here there you can point to geopolitics certainly as you look at the 4 years of the trump administration and major story has been the dramatic decline in the relations between the united states and china so in the case of taiwan it is it is poking beijing in the eye with a stick as it as it goes 'd out the door i mean likewise the trump administration has paid a great deal of attention you know to to the middle east to chad breakthroughs this year in terms of relations between gulf states sudan and morocco you can question the that. 'd the nature of the transaction but obviously normalization of relations between israel and its neighbors has been something that's been a bipartisan objective for years so that's geopolitics certainly when you talk

about yemen you talk about cuba i think this is more driven by domestic politics trying to put to put down markers title make the bike administration's task of changing policy that much more difficult i'm just talk us through what impact then this will have on biden's foreign policies how much difficulty will he even have a issues like yemen that involves iran cuba which has not been read designated as a state sponsor of terror. in the case of cube you're talking about the beginnings of the 2024 presidential election this is about votes in florida in the case of iran obviously the biden mr ation you know hopes to try to move back to urge that j.c. be away the iran nuclear deal and i think this is where you know the trump the trum administration just simply wants to race the political cost of any move in that direction. and biden has already said he will counter russia and china by strengthening alliances with bodies like nato which of trump effectively abandoned

in terms of ideology p.j. with biden bases policies and what he sees as the struggle between free democracy is on the one hand and rising old author of terrorism around the world on the other i think that's part of his objective but it is movie united states back in a more traditional direction obviously as president trump leaves office he has put tremendous strain on relationships with america's closest friends and allies i think to bite him astray she will will will try to reassure the world but obviously 1st and foremost the 1st priority is going to be you know dealing with the global pandemic and the effects here of the country and beyond and i think this actually could be a platform for cooperation in terms of vaccine distribution to make sure that everyone around the world has access to it because none of us are safe until all of us are safe just a just a quick thought on taiwan before you go because it touched on it down in taiwan is

always a very sensitive issue for china has trouble laid a political land mine here for the incoming biden administration because this of course will set the tone for u.s. chinese relations going forward with biden. absolutely it is a landmine by the same token you know just. biden will come into office with with very very low expectations in terms of what the u.s. china relationship will yield this is going to be probably the centerpiece of the biden foreign policy of the next 4 years p.j. crowley great to get your thoughts thanks for talking to us you're quite welcome. time for a short break here al-jazeera when we come back how israel's approval of more settlements in the occupied west bank could displace the next u.s. president and facebook shuts down accounts of some ugandan government officials ahead of thursday's elections more in a state that's. how

i once again welcome to another look at the international forecast it looks like a pretty quiet week across much of north america i am pleased to say that say there is a little bit of wet weather just moving through the deep south just around louisiana mississippi some snow in the northern flank of that sweeps through as we go through chews day things quieten down pretty quite nicely getting up to around 678 degrees celsius stephanie york and for d.c. not too much going on across the central parts and most of the border into canada but so was the pacific northwest western canada they say alberta saying rain sleet and snow strong winds are driving their way in across oregon and washington state northern parts of california also seeing some of that wetter weather as we go on through where the stable make its way a little further east where it's all snow then coming in over the mountain states but elsewhere as you can see

a slushy 5 to drive or some pleasant sunshine to have some shades weather i would say on the cool side but spotting sunshine to enjoy a fair bit of sunshine into the camera bam gazza think a cloud outbreaks of rain across the western side of the caribbean that weather system just pulling away from the southeastern corner of the u.s. leaves a trailing front down across the yucatan peninsula some heavy rain coming into southern parts of mexico with the risk of flooding for some. madagascar. at breathtaking tropical paradise. where its former protector. now it's interests. we follow through just as they put their lives from the mine to the. risk he gets on medicare. on al-jazeera.

the. welcome back of them out of our top stories here at this hour u.s. house democrats have introduced a resolution to impeach president from for inciting violence on capitol hill last week also urging vice president mike pence trent but the 25th amendment declaring trump unfit to hold office. an f.b.i. memo leaked to the media is warning of on protests in washington d.c. in all 50 states in the days leading up to joe biden's inauguration president trump has approved an emergency declaration for the capital until john the 24th national guards are going around 15000 troops. on the trumpet ministration has really

designated cuba a state sponsor of terrorism a statement from sect of state might compare said cuba had repeatedly harbored terrorists 2015 then president barack obama took cuba off the black list to normalize relations. with. the u.k.'s health system is under severe pressure from rising corona virus infections the health secretary says more than 32000 people are in hospital with code 91 of the government is prepared to introduce tougher restrictions. as the chief medical officer said earlier today we're at the worst point in this pandemic and you can see that from this slide and from the increase in number of people in hospital so the n.h.s. more than ever before need everybody to be doing something right now and that something is to follow the rules and now i know there's been speculation about more

restrictions and we don't rule out taking further action if it's needed but it's your actions now that can make a difference stay at home and please reduce all social contact that is not absolutely strictly necessary meanwhile hospitals in the u.s. are under immense strain particularly the state of california 30000 people there have now died from the virus health officials are pinning their hopes and a massive vaccination program rob reynolds reports from los angeles. as california and other parts of the us real under the relentless onslaught of covert 19 a new vaccination superstation opened in san diego the facility is meant to provide $5000.00 vaccinations per day on monday california reported more than 30000 deaths since the pandemic began with the number of hospitalizations now increasing rapidly we are in the middle of a surge right now there hasn't been

a top yet more than 1100 people in the state died over the weekend a new 2 day record. 2. hospitals in the region are trying to cope with a crushing number of patients and beginning to plan for rationing care i've seen more people passed away the past week. and the past couple of weeks really in the night almost a come back then all of my career as a nurse nationwide the u.s. covert death toll past 375000 the more infectious u.k. coronavirus variant has been identified in at least 9 states more cases that occur with this infection just more challenges going to our health care system and if we do see 2030 percent increase in cases in many locations that could be the difference between be imbibed here and everyone and not you know by air and everyone on monday president elect joe biden got his 2nd dose of the pfizer vaccine biden said he would outline more of his pandemic response plan later this week so

far fewer than 7000000 vaccinations have been administered nationwide there's a long way to go in vaccinating the bulk of the population if we get that overwhelming majority of people vaccinated i think we could start approaching a reasonable degree of normality towards the mid for all of 2021 the centers for disease control estimates that 65000 more people in the u.s. will die from covert 19 by the end of january robert oulds al jazeera los angeles. lebanon is tightening lockdown restrictions as hospitals warn they're reaching critical capacity the measures include a 24 hour curfew that will come into effect on thursday the country has seen a dramatic rise in cases with daily infections above 3000 lebanon still struggling with a major economic crisis and the aftermath of the beirut port explosion last august malaysia's king has declared

a state of emergency out for surgeon infections the country is reporting more than 2000 $400.00 new cases each day announcement comes after a 2 week lockdown was imposed in the capital kuala lumpur and 5 other regions travel between all states is now banned and south africa is closing some of its land borders until mid february the government's trying to reduce crowding as it battles a surge in cases their instructions remain on public gatherings including funerals which the president has described as deathtraps but as robert out of new reports from cape town many ceremonies are being delayed because of a shortage of coffins that dan is known the world over for its brisk thinking sites but for all its beauty the city is battling to cope with a 2nd wave of the good old divide is spent demick covert fatalities have skyrocketed in recent weeks overworked and exhausted undertakers say they cannot keep up at the moment we could hardly cope extremely busy with funerals of the

carpet. even running out of space. coffins manufacturers of coffins are working overtime to make up the shortages and meet demand is a big rally but it's not really the shortage of the coffins or the shortage of the wood it's really the problems more but in flux all of that is happening many believe the situation here is only going to get worse for the city of cape town. overall for the problems we had 5000 this in the 1st in the 1st wave we projecting to have between 500-7000 this for the 2nd wave the steep increase in coburg related deaths is also putting additional strain on burial sites this is my plan cemetery it is cutdowns oldest and largest burial site that's we met on $135.00 u.s. casualties of world war one and world war 2 a baby is also the final resting place of those who succumb to the smallpox

epidemic in the $8100.00 it's actually that epidemic that led to its construction now nearly a year from south africa's 1st reported cut out of this case they are growing fears that this place would see them at a spice for victims of code 19 government officials have confirmed they are down to their last dedicated area for those killed by covert at 2 of the biggest grave sites but they say they are prepared for any eventuality. if it's in the 1st way a number of last images were identified if needs be. to be committed it is important to me to add that. is not. we would like to make use of it's a tough situation and while some are able to give their loved ones a dignified sendoff others are left to wait and wonder if they will be able to do the same items al-jazeera that done. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is

moving ahead with the construction of nearly 800 homes for jewish settlers in the occupied west bank the announcement comes just days before u.s. president elect joe biden is sworn into office biden has been critical of illegal israeli settlement policies in the past while donald trump has largely supported them for a force that has more than western. we had expected there to be a new settlement announcement to take place before the inauguration of joe biden on the 20th of january and there was a report locally here in israel that it was going to take place next week at a planning committee meeting $850.00 new units either approved or in other ways sanctioned at various stages of the approval process and so benjamin netanyahu simply preempted that meeting next week and come out and confirm that report saying that yes there will be such. a large number of new units either approved or confirmed at that meeting it makes sense for him domestically in terms

of politics in the run up to an election where he is facing a substantial challenge from his right to try and satisfy some of those pro such voices the numbers are about 100 new units approved at a northern settlement of tal menasha that's where. a woman was killed by a palestinian in an attack in december and her husband has been calling for more construction in it so again that is something of a of a move designed to play well with voters here 500 units approved elsewhere in the occupied west bank and 250 retrospective lee this is very much in accordance with israeli plans it seems the current administration ahead of the biden administration taking office in the united states biden has long been against settlements has spoken out against them as obstructions towards a 2 state solution he may not go back on various trunk moves such as recognizing

jerusalem as israel's capital moving the u.s. embassy here but people are expecting him to try to clamp down on settlements and so this is very much a warning shot against him the leader of the opposition here in israel period has called this irresponsible and he says that israel is being dragged into an unnecessary confrontation with the incoming administration. oh moniz to appoint a crown prince for the 1st time as part of a major overhaul of its constitution so it's on the high thumb been outside says the changes will also include new parliamentary rules and more rights and freedoms for citizens but didn't go into further detail soltanieh came to power after the death of his predecessor sultan qaboos. facebook has shut down accounts belonging to ugandan government officials just days before the presidential election the us social media giant says fake accounts including those from the ministry of information being used to manipulate public debate ahead of thursday's vote

election its long time lead that you were in a 70 against 10 candidates including pop star turned politician but you watch all the news of course on our website there it is on your screen there press al-jazeera dot com that's around a 0. time for a quick check of the headlines here on al-jazeera u.s. house democrats introduced a resolution to impeach president trump for inciting violence on capitol hill last week and also urging vice president mike pence to invoke the 25th amendment declaring trump unfit to hold office.