empire and colonise ation of. oman history power and influence on al-jazeera. india believe 3000000 people have been excluded from the least but see just. what i want a speech the family's life to live along. but how does the. me and miles they dance and suci and other senior government officials have been detained by the military just hours before a newly elected parliament was set to convene phone and internet services are disrupted in the country's state television says it's an able to broadcast due to technical issues. the whole robin you're watching al-jazeera live by headquarters here in doha also coming up donald trump's office names

a new legal team for his impeachment trial in the u.s. senate. was he was also a protester a lot of all stuck to speeches but russians come out in support of jailed kremlin critic alexina valley thousands of are detained. at a bail hearing in hong kong for jimmy lie the billionaire media tycoon charged with violating national security law. welcome to the program me a leader and son suchi and other senior figures from the ruling party have been detained in an early morning raid but fears of a military coup this follows days of escalating tension between the civilian government and the powerful military which claims that the recent election was tainted by fraud victoria gate b reports. the military made it legally early hours of the morally detaining

democratically elected leader and frank suchi and other senior figures from the ruling party the situation can go one of 2 wives are this is the beginning which is distinctly possible or military has played its hand and it will have to back down in the next hour. and if it does that then i think we really have to do a great thing and have scant necked marks and fancy cheese and l d government one never embers election by a landslide but accusations of electoral food have led to tensions between the civilian government and the military. the political crisis began last tuesday when a military spokesman refused to rule out the possibility of a coup the following day mammals military chief state fairs when he said the constitution should be repealed if it was not abided by as tensions reached their peak on saturday the military issued a new statement saying the commander in chief's comments had been misinterpreted

and pledged to protect the constitution. but just hours later emboldened by remus hundreds of protesters gathered in yangon at a prayer military rally where speech is welcome to kill with the support of the people more than a dozen countries including the u.s. and the u.k. have urged me amar to adhere to democratic norms a military coup would likely lead to more sanctions what my stance is is that is have the upper hand in the internal military struggles but also their own back to the chinese arms and say look this is where we think you're going in the chinese government which is not inclined to support him obviously as i said you have that in. the n.l. de has called on the military to accept the will of the people and has asked it supposed to stay calm on the same day a new parliament was due to open in myanmar the fate of the country's democracy is

uncertain victoria gate and the al-jazeera front lines an internet services being cut in parts of me and state television is also stopped broadcasting our reporter in yangon this updates before it happened. i'm hearing that about 3 am they started winding people in the capital several through the lobby with pay not just on time peachy but also all the ministers mrs legion so i rang the. regional ministers who could be the change chairman saying to hear young guns and also the cabinet ministers some present and also simplest. and most immediate his attorney be taken under military control feel like this is the beginning of a coup the fiji has always been very real people here and 'd the military is full of. the military so i don't think anyone has a rule that there was

a lot of skepticism about whether they you know the classic military plays that they don't normally imagine what they're going to be hit by normally give warning so a lot of people did feel that this might be rectal posturing from them in order to say that if things go through such people could be incredibly worried and you know there's a lot of tension on the street. they need to protest quite a minute to people and from the majority of the end of the school to most of the population things have been quiet but. d popping up around the city and the flags. d going past. cooking up in the streets people are really showing that the pool and i think there will be a very negative reaction from the public. has reported extensively. seem to become a reality now is obviously this communication blackout was to the. well

as you heard from ali the certainly sounds like the beginnings of a coup to have the leader of a country and the president senior officials as well in government to be taken and detained and not have a statement coming out from the military as to why these people have been detained that should really shouldn't surprise is that the military has always operated in a rather opaque fashion in myanmar it has in many ways considered itself above the law now the worrying thing is left in the dark as to what's happening and we have those remarks from the military hinting that they wouldn't be averse to staging a military coup to take power because they view the elections that were held in november as being fraudulently held and now we're seeing that this is possibly what has happened now on the asia human rights asia human rights watch advocacy director

did say that in the military indian law they never really submit it to civilian authority in the 1st place so today's events in some sense are merely revealing a political reality that has already existed then the myanmar military has always been very wary of sharing power and so when they handed over power to distance at least civilian government back in 2010 and then allowed free elections to be held in 2015 they had already written into the constitution provisions that would guarantee their power they reserved 25 percent of seats in parliament for themselves which gave them an effective constitutional veto and they also retain control of 3 very important ministries in government so they've always wanted to secure for themselves that place in government but i suppose with the landslide election victory that aung san suu cheez party the national league for democracy

obtained in 2015 and then in the last election just last late last year the military is slowly seeing not just its power but it's in for. rents slowly seeping away. and also national league for democracy in that one term that would help try to change the constitution and that is possibly what the military restraint of course is that this is a coup we think it is obviously florence they wouldn't have gone ahead without some sort of support beyond their borders they have allies in the region that it really care what the west things they don't care what america thinks they've gone ahead with what has been the military regime for decades now are we looking at the influence of china. for very likely yes now when the country was under military rule it was very very close to china and it was also quite close to these asian states because of these asian states

have made it a point never to criticize one of their members that belong to the asian the that belong to the community of southeast asian nations so this is possibly the myanmar military leaders returning back to china to china to to china side you know when the country had opened up when it had started and you know the process of democratic reforms it also meant that commercially the country had to open up so you had foreign investors pouring in and china was slowly sort of being pushed aside you had big projects that china was involved in where you had you know people from people from that area holding protests and then the government putting those projects on hold so china couldn't possibly have been happy with the fact that young mother slowly being accepted into the international community no longer being the pariah that it was nana was getting foreign aid it was getting foreign investment so with myanmar if it does indeed go back to the hands of military rule

then china is going to have a stronger hand in the country as well returning back to the days when myanmar was a military run state we'll just see what the official word is from a young girl when those communication lines open up maybe in a few hours time for the moment florence thanks very much for it so you there our correspondent in kuala lumpur and we've just heard a statement from the white house is the united states opposes any attempt to alter the outcome of recent elections or impede me a democratic transition and we'll take action against those responsible if these steps are not reversed we're monitoring the situation closely and stand with the people of burma who are already whole who already have enjoyed so much in their quest for democracy and peace let's get more this for melissa couch a professor at the university. south wales the author of the book of the constitution of me about joins me now via skype from sydney good to have you with us on the program on what is a developing story melissa we're not quite sure what's going on in me and right now

with those communication links broken this is however if it is a military coup we assume it is is a huge risk for the military considering it's on the eve of parliament sitting and really focusing on the fact that democracy was working to some part within the country. yes thanks look i think we should go back to what we know so we know already that the military wasn't happy with the outcome of the elections last november some would say that the commander in chief himself had ambitions to be president to achieve their military backed political party would have had to. i think of seats that didn't happen and so since the elections we've been missionaries saying the military tried to use legal channels so 1st of all they went to parliament and i tried to raise this issue of what they claim is select will fraud in parliament parliament said we don't deal with this it's the election

commission that deals with these issues which is right and they then went to the election commission a large number of cases and with the election commission there hasn't i guess been resolved in oil military liked the military is named on to the supreme court and i think this is where it gets interesting because actually the supreme court has only at home the case that the military has brought against the union action commission and some of the current rules including uncensored she in the supreme court so we're also waiting to hear about that look today's date is where i was he waiting to hear more i think what is clear though is that there is no legal basis for the military to take over while the military may claim there are certain powers in the constitution that allows it to do this and that is very much open to interpretation and it's fairly clear that in terms of a constitutional american see that that. is with the president and not with the commander in chief and indeed the president has also we believe been detained at

all and as you say we don't know what's going on so we have to perhaps talk in hypotheticals is likely because what we do know is that for example the u.n. chief has had a good terrorist also talked about the disputed election as far as the military was concerned and focused his attention on getting the election commission to sort it out who is who would be the kingpin the game player in all of this is it the the military chief who was about to be retired is is it army chief is it being one laying to who will be sort of the linchpin in all of this is a statement from him that we're waiting for. yes that's right look i think i very much monitoring the media news channels as to what kind of statement they might put out you're right that the commander in chief minimum lying is likely to be the key player here while he is 65 and so is juicy retiring this year and there is one possibility that the military head up it's they which is it could have simply

changed the rule and it could have extended the age limit perhaps to 70 to allow him to serve as commander in chief for another 5 years we don't know why they haven't done that but that's really perhaps the only other way that they would continue in the current system if this is the current thinking that raises a lot of questions about the future for me emma. and. is obviously of great concern to these national community indeed there are lots of moving parts this story which are still unresolved which we'll be watching very carefully in the coming hours melissa crouch thanks so much for joining us thank you. so head here on out is there a helping to tackle one of the world's worst coronavirus our breaks germany and says portugal's cries for help. little messy salaries leads by a spanish newspaper leaving barcelona fans divided over whether their star player is really worth it their stories after the break and.

it's time for the perfect gentleman the weather sponsored point qatar airways where the snow stopped temporarily in most japan we're actually injecting walk through while there's a line of where the war meets the culture frontal system bringing rain from eastern china through the south of japan at the top of that is snow goes so far colorado as you will notice but the whole thing is pushed slowly cyrus was rain turns to snow as the coder types in behind for the masses of honshu took tokyo would eventually drop from 16 you'll feel the cold chill were down to minus 3 in sol such concepts here are having a quite warm day on monday and china looks so much better but a cloud with the rain in the southwest otherwise it looks pretty fine pretty widespread showers mostly light through malaysia indonesia but borneo sees a pick up in that likelihood on monday and that's true through

a jar and points eastwards further west regular showers picked up every day and the northeast monsoons and by a bang goal is to make sri lanka a workplace some catch time and now the fog is still persistent problem from bangladesh the northern indian plane that's true for monday and tuesday but look at the forecast for new delhi as i get to wednesday and thursday some storms possible then breezy and sherry a complete change in your fortunes. sponsored by qatar airways. what is the price of luxury. an undercover team travels deep into the illegal cocoa plantations of the ivory coast simple solutions are very hard to find for something as complicated as the child labor. chocolates heart of darkness and count as unpaid child labor is working in a 100000000000 dollar industry well over half of the country's cocoa produces live

below the poverty line an al-jazeera. book about what you all deserve me said the reminder of our top stories at mia miles ruling party's leader and son suchi has been detained by the military along with other key politicians it follows weeks of tension between the civilian government and the army which has sought to discredit november's elections that return the national league for democracy to power. internet connections and some phone services are being disrupted in parts of the country state television has also announced that its stopping broadcast due to what it describes as technical

issues. former u.s. president donald trump pals named a new legal team to head his impeachment defense that comes after trump abruptly parted ways with his lead impeachment lawyers on saturday night is accused of inciting his supporters to storm the capitol building on january the 6th after he repeated false claims of election fraud his aides say they plan to argue the trial is unconstitutional because he has no because he is no longer in office particle aim is capitol hill she says trump is trying to put up a strong front. but the president trying to send a message that with just days february 9th his impeachment trial that he's got this legal team in place now this comes after the 5 lawyers who were fairly well known seem to have quit his defense and the reports were it was because he wanted them to say that the votes were stolen that they he won the election obviously unclear what kind of legal strategy that would be not only would it be false and lying to

congress is in fact a crime it would if the legal argument is that he won the election are they then making the legal argument that it was ok for the rioters mob to storm the capitol and we're 5 people died so apparently they're not going to take that tack to the statement saying that they're going to argue that this is unconstitutional as you mention because he left office and that is something that they point out that $45.00 republicans in the senate wanted to debate before the impeachment trial it was voted down but they wanted to talk about whether it's constitutional hong kong media tycoon pro-democracy activist jimmy law is appearing in the city's top course and he's facing the government's appeal against the decision to extend his bail the 73 year old is accused of fraud and conspiring with foreign forces under china's sweeping national security though he's faced critic of china's leadership the highest profile person to be charged under the controversial legislation let's get more on this correspondent david apologies standing by in hong kong so if you watch

the timeline of today's events in court. so hell jimmy liar arrives here not long ago flying 5 very heavy security although we couldn't see him because the van drove right up to the tunnel behind me that's a very unusual arrangement here at the quarter final appeal he went through that tunnel 8 into the court a final appeal and proceedings have begun we're likely to hear whether he gets bail today itself during the sessions today when exactly that is clear but what's clear is that there's a lot of local media interest and international interest in this case particularly because it is jimmy lyon particularly because of the on the usual nature of this case jimmy was granted bail on december 23rd originally after his arrest and all this but that's the question then there were many noises from beijing particularly in the form of comments from state media saying that hong kong's courts the high

court which granted him bail did not understand the nature of china's national security and the nature of hong kong's national security law and so the department of justice then intervened there was another hearing on december 31st when he was promptly returned back in jail until now for a month in february 1st and here we're not hearing whether he will remain in jail until his actual national security law a trial in april but there is one more anomaly to this almost all cases in hong kong which go to the national courts a final appeal have an international judge but this time there isn't an international judge presiding that that is tradition in hong kong to show that the city judiciary up holds international standards and is transparent but this time all 5 judges are not no security lot of judges who have been handpicked by the chief executives of hill who you say there's a great deal of international domestic interest in this case but how much support

as you might say in the public domain old the street considering there's been a huge club. on any war in hong kong sort of criticizing the influence of beijing gold the city. tried to that national security law it's very hard to now express dissent or protest in hong kong although i must say there was a very long queue into the public gallery our head of this case for the look public to watch the proceedings that that in a sense gives you a sense of the interest and perhaps support for the media mogul but also there's a lot of international interest in this case and therefore although you can't express support and home kong there seems to be a lot of support our round of what is going on in the city particularly beijing's crackdown on voicing out pro-democracy support or are trying to enhance any kind of pro-democracy activities here so hello. thanks very

much continue to follow proceedings there with you in hong kong through the day. from st petersburg in the west to vladivostok in the far east tens of thousands of rallies across russia demanding the release of journalist kremlin critic alexy the valley more than 5000 people have reportedly been detained as a bird has more. for you know. you don't have to stay longer to demonstration in russia before you might be arrested right here of the. police wasting no time in taking these protesters away. but you know you they had been warned. in the current circumstances the risk of the protest organizers and active participants provocations is increasing and there is a miss to violate civil order in this situation your personal safety can be under threat but alexina valmy supporters braved the subzero temperatures to have this say. these ones pushed out by police found themselves on the frozen waters in

vladivostok. justice just remember that what i'm seeing now is some kind of inadequate reaction people are coming out peacefully they were not doing anything illegal now there is intimidation but as you can see no one is afraid. the city square is completely blocked off by police but there is someone there from the protesters and there are arrests there aren't many people this time but police and special forces have prepared in advance and blocked the square was the kremlin seems to have been rattled by this latest wave of protests. and i haven't heard about her and have adopted a 0 tolerance approach them of even putting pressure on online platforms to shut down any talk of demonstrations was involved he says he's poisoning in august last year was state sanctioned something the kremlin has denied the opposition leader and critic of president vladimir putin spent months in germany recovering was this

movement is more than just support from the vuln of the it's been a mobilizing call for those for straight to do everything from the economy to longstanding claims of corruption development supporters have used social media to spread he's views and to organize protests there have been thousands of arrests across russia and with just days to go before novelli appears in court to face charges of parole violations the kremlin is keen to shut down and discredit him and he supporters aside big al-jazeera. well germany is sending medical workers and the quitman to portugal after asked for assistance while battling one of the world's worst krone virus breaks the portuguese government has also closed its borders with neighboring spain and banned its citizens from traveling abroad. are to a palma and his assistant are taking no chances and this funeral parlor that he runs in lisbon they're handling the body of an elderly resident who just died from

corona virus pumice says he visits nursing homes up to 4 times a week to pick up bodies of those killed by covert 19 more than 12000 people have died so far in portugal half of them since the beginning of january. or it's chaos it's really chaos so many people are dead there's no room for all of them people should be careful they need to know the corona virus kills for real i have already lost my aunt my cousin my father and my grandfather. portugal is currently the hardest hit country in the world in proportion to its population on top of a nation wide lockdown portugal has shut its borders with spain and for 2 weeks no portuguese citizen can travel abroad except in special cases but. as we get there if you could you know of before the closure there was some movement in the border area but at the moment it is quieter i assume that people are paying attention to the border controls and respecting the restrictions. portugal's hospitals are

severely strained with his health ministry warning there are only a few intensive care beds left on the mainland some patients have been airlifted to the island of madeira to ease the pressure. the government's also asked for help from germany which is sending medical workers and equipment to help cope with the influx the situation is only comparable sure. to its tsunami in the sense that the number of. actions that we are seeing on the rise. for weeks on word. this of course then translate into more patients going in. 'd which then leads to more. then into ice you. the government says the more contagious strain of corona virus from the u.k. is to blame for up to a 3rd of the country's infections but the situation went from bad to worse as

restrictions be lax over christmas. not even in question for i think they made a mistake at christmas they didn't have enough courage to order people to stay home for political reasons him must be at a more imp warmers in a can be people still don't have respect for the rules and for as long as they don't understand that they've got to respect the rules we're not going anywhere. but even if rules are respected the governments warn the public that the country's facing its worst moment since the start of the pandemic and that will continue for at least a few more weeks and they sue al-jazeera. thousands of ultra-orthodox jews in israel have again flouted coronavirus restrictions attending funerals for 2 prominent rabbis public gatherings of more than 10 people abandoned last weekend thousands of people from the same community attended another funeral israel has been praised for its speedy vaccine rollout but a recent surge in cases has sparked concern. and in brazil anger over

president rivals laura's handling of the krona virus pandemic continues to grow hundreds of people gathered in central brasilia calling for balzano rose resignation some war plastic bags over their heads symbolizing those killed due to oxygen shortages in amazonas state more than 220000 people have died from the virus in brazil 2nd only to the united states this. little messy scored his 650th goal for barcelona in their win over athletic bilbao comes on the same day that a spanish newspaper leaked details of his boss a contract that is dividing fans in the spanish city the deal signed in $27.00 team is worth $673000000.00 over 4 seasons according to a window newspaper it's believed to be the most expensive contract ever agreed with an athlete in any sport and messi would have to pay half of that in taxes in spain

barcelona say the league didn't come from them and will sue the newspaper your group. i think there are more important headlines today than publishing leo's contract how much he gets is something between barsa and the player it isn't my business what i see here is an amount of money i can't possibly fathom i won't make this amount of money not even in $15.00 consecutive reincarnations but i insist this doesn't merit to be in the headline of a national newspaper the level where it's absurd it's absurd missy's contract is ruining barcelona. as i feel awful if i think that if football is generate more revenue than other sports people then why shouldn't they get paid accordingly media rights image rights it wouldn't be fair if he didn't generate that many millions in revenue in a big club then he wouldn't get paid that money. he was breaking news coming out of me and it's now confirmed that a coup d'etat is underway.