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 parser and the player 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 or level where it's absurd it's absurd missy's contract is ruining barcelona if there's any lawful or least i think that if football is generate more revenue than other schools 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 at 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 in the country where the military says power has been

handed over to its commander in chief min yang to me involves a ruling party said that the leader and son suchi have been detained by the military along with other key politicians that follows weeks of tension between the civilian government and the army which has sought to discredit november's general elections and return the national league for democracy to power well the white house has also issued a statement saying that the united states opposes any attempt to alter the outcome of recent elections or impede myanmar's democratic transition and will take action against those responsible if these steps are not reversed we are monitoring the situation it goes on to say closely and stand with the people of burma who've already enjoyed so much in their quest for democracy and peace of course this follows days of escalating tension between the civilian government and the powerful military which claims that the recent election was tainted by fraud. explains.

the military made its move in the early hours of the morning detaining democratically elected leader and sank sea change and other senior figures from the ruling party the situation can go one of 2 wires are this is the beginning of a career which is distinctly possible or the military hasn't played its hand and it will have to back down in the next hours. and if it does that then i think we really have to do a great thing and abstract marks on 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 prime 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 add here to democratic norms a military coup would likely lead to more sanctions what my stance is is that one is have the upper hand in the internal notary struggles but also they have gone back to their chinese arms and say look this is where we think you are going is not 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 supporters 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 of oslo joins me now from kuala lumpur as a reported extensively from. it seems that the rumors have now become a reality a state of emergency in other words it does seem a military coup is taking place florence. that's right now on military own tape t.v. it was announced that the military said that it was carried carried out the detentions in response to election fraud and this is what the military had been saying you know that they feel that there has been election fraud and they wouldn't . they they they would hold they would they would do all it takes to uphold the constitution and they didn't rule out actually holding a military coup this was what the military chave had said earlier last week and he seemed to be he had to have backtracked on those comments but now it appears that it is correct that the military has staged

a coup and are also hearing that the president has temporarily transferred over power to the military chief men and that a state of emergency has been declared for a year now we're not sure what has happened to the people who have been detained and that includes the state counselor who is the effective leader of the country on sun suchi the president as well as other high ranking officials and we've also heard that of we've also heard that activists have also been detained in the early hours of monday morning we're not sure what is going to be happening with them whether charges are going to be pressed and what's going to be happening in terms of these accusations of electoral fraud that allegedly happened in the election last november and of course the election. was a real awakening for the military perhaps they didn't understand how popular democracy would be in the country and we're in the state that we're in today.

that's right now in the military had always been very wary of sun suchi back when she was back when she had just come back when she was very young and shit come back to defend the country or to against the military against military rule that they were so afraid of her that they kept her in her under house arrest for more than a dozen years and then when they rewrote the constitution they rewrote it with a specific clause that prevented her from ever becoming president they made it a provision in the constitution that anybody who has a spouse who holds a foreign passport or close relatives with a foreign passport and that's also answered she will never be able to become president and when she won the election in 2015 and the previous election in 2000 just last year while her popularity has and waned she has only become more powerful and the military is seeing that despite the other guarantees it's written into the constitution which is a 25 percent of seats in parliament reserved for them control of 3 important ministries in parliament which includes defense and board defense and home ministry

that isn't enough to guarantee power and influence to the military and they will possibly afraid because she her government had attempted to change the constitution within that one term that they were in power and so the military is probably calculated its moves and decided that while democracy isn't really working for us we as an institution have been in power for 5060 years we handed over power voluntarily to a civilian government and it hasn't benefited us in any way and of course we've seen the condemnation already begin with the white house so it's a good position we expect of course more criticism globally and regionally do the military curb. i think during from judging from past experience the military really don't care what the international community has to say as long as foreign investors are going to keep coming in as

long as it can still do business it doesn't have to be with the rest of the world as long as it can still do business with a powerful state and the years when i was a was an international pariah the military government was doing business with southeast asian countries it was doing business especially with china so it's possible that it's going to go back to that because when the government when when myanmar was undergoing its democratic transition the country had opened up foreign investment was pouring in china found itself having to compete with other nations other countries it had projects which were important to it which were put on hold because of popular protests and because the minute the the civilian government then supported the people's protest against these big projects projects that included damming of rivers and explore exploration of of for mine.

deforestation and taking over people's land so you know if myanmar myanmar military government if it has to return to its previous state where it can only do business with china. it's not a terrible scenario for the military government and in fact they may find that they are probably happier without having to share the spoils with other countries and with other commercial entities in young laugh is it of concern that the door wouldn't have gone through with what they're doing right now without china's support so this creates another problem for not just a new biden administration but for europe in a global community that's actually dealing with a viral pandemic at the moment and now they've got this very important military coup happening involving more than likely china. absolutely and the message of ascending to the rest of the country the rest of

world the other countries that are watching this very closely is that. in our democracy is all well and good but there's also this other form of government and that could very well work for you i mean we're an autocratic nation but we are going to keep governing this country and we're going to make sure that it keeps prospering economically it doesn't you know we're not we may not be open up to the rest of the world of the rest of the world wants to reimpose sanctions on myanmar that's fine as long as the countries that will keep investing in us and looking mainly at china then the man the government the man my military government could just turn around and say well this is one form of government that's going to really work quite well for the rest of the people you don't have a democratic freedoms but we will still be able to keep the country functioning and we will still be able to keep the economy running we got a statement shortly before we thought this military coup was confirmed by. my pronunciation florence a spokesperson for the ruling party saying that i want to tell our people not to

respond rationally and i want them to act according to the law. she has a great deal of popular support but one wonders whether this popular support will come out onto the streets or whether they will be too afraid to come out onto the streets. well know more people have been very very brave in the past. the sisters in uprising it was brutally put down and then there was another one that by monks so they have in the past come out very strongly against a military rule and it wouldn't be surprising if they were to do the same again and i think that's why the military has already taken precautions in detaining activists at the same time as they detained on sun sujit and other officials of government and not only that they've also placed soldiers and military trucks in yangon and we're hearing that they've taken over city hall in yangon we're hearing

that there are also military trucks on the streets in yangon the largest city in the country and we're also hearing that telephone and telephone lines have been cut t.v. stations are no longer broadcasting apart from military owned t.v. so you know there is i think that fear in the military that another uprising could happen that people could come on the streets and demonstrate against this because they are so unhappy you know people have been really happy with democracy people people want to give a civilian government a chance and that's why you saw that huge electoral victory that aung san suu kyi and her party had which the military announcing was obtained by electoral fraud so there is a possibility that people come out in the streets and the military is aware of that and that's why they've put all these other things in place including shutting down communications in the country and putting their assets troops and military trucks on the streets in yangon it might be too soon to say florence but obviously when when we talk in the wider context of what's been going on the mere we talk about

the rohingya who've been fleeing over to bangladesh but we also talk about the small military groups like the american army up in the north all fighting to some sort of autonomy and independence how does that fit in to the fact that the military taken over what is a coup and that relationship if there is one at all between the military and small armed groups that are looking for that autonomy where they were talking to a civilian government previously. i think what's going to be happening is we're going to see that the military having taken over having taken power and declared a state of emergency for the next year the military is going to be able to act with a level of impunity that's even greater than it had in the past and we're not just talking about the and the our economy there's also the qur'an on all these other little groups they are going to have to be very careful because the military is extremely powerful it is still an extremely powerful institution in the country and

with what's just happened it is going to be even more powerful with no checks and balances against it and no no one who'd be able to to to say no one who are able to come up and defend their minority groups and say that what the military doing is wrong because the military is that essentially going to be acting as judge prosecutor and gerry it's it's going to be you know it's going to be above the law . in terms of the international community florence when we saw unsung suchi released from. home. you might say her own home prison the days of her incarceration the international community of brace the fact that democracy was moving slowly you say there's been so much investment into the country to the international community offer too much help too soon that is perhaps waters brought the jitters into the military in seeing that as you talked about the open the

possibility of how a country can develop and or the lack of influence that this institution could have has been really a large part of of why we're seeing what we're seeing right now. in italy and more. well the military even when it started handing over power to civilian government back in 2010 they had military generals resign and then form its own party so the military even though the military they gave up power but they also made sure to retain it so they were still very powerful the generals were still very powerful they still had very important business interests so i really don't think it's so much of that but it was just you know seeing that it doesn't pay to only have 25 percent of seats guaranteed you always only just have 25 percent of seats were even less so really it is just a matter of coming back and saying well we tried democracy we tried to give people

some freedoms but i'm afraid it's not working out because we find that we have fewer powers then we started out with and really what is there what is in it for us and i just want to read you a quote that the asia advocacy director of human rights watch john sifton said about the military he said they never really said to civilian authority in the 1st place so today's events in some sense i'm merely revealing a political reality that already existed where do we start the thinking about what and sons to choose next move will be she might be in the house arrest we're not quite sure where she is at the moment but we assume that she will be incarcerated in some form what is her we know her pop she's very popular of the in the country internationally her popularity has waned because of her stance on the rohingya putting that aside what do you think her next move will be will she be able to speak publicly will she be able to get any sort of message out to the outside world one wonders what that relationship could be with the military if any if any at all

. you know and you know also says she has been so careful to develop a relationship with the military i mean these were people who had put her behind bars for collectively about 15 years she was under house arrest for about 15 years and she was unable to see her husband who was dying abroad and she didn't really have a relationship with with her family because of her years under house arrest in myanmar but even when she was relieved when she was leader of the country she was so careful to maintain a relationship with the myanmar military to the extent where the when the myanmar military was condemned for its brutal crackdown on wearing a minority in 2017 aung san suu kyi defended them and she did the same again at the hague when the military in a country where it used of committing genocide on the ring of minority she stood up and she defended the myanmar military. at the international court of justice now i'm not sure whether she will be allowed to speak publicly by the myanmar military

. it is possible that the minimum military will calculate this and say and think that she's very popular but we also need her to give some sort of statement to assure people that this is just temporary so there we may be able to see she may be allowed to issue a statement but enter the military having come so far having now taken this step to. putting it to taking over taking this huge step in carrying out a military coup in taking that power they are not going to want to see it slip away so even if she is allowed to make a statement i think they will be very it will be a calf really vetted statement and she won't be able to speak freely it will just well very possibly go back to the days when i was strictly on dad military will go away florence i will be going back to ensure the story develops let's cross over to

beijing work a treaty you is standing by china is perhaps be a my closest ally and friend katrina and the words coming out of the foreign ministry it's all. so far no are but we are sure that beijing is watching very closely of course as you mention is a key ally for china china sees maya as a very significant player in their asia region and china has tried to move closer to my own ma over the past few years now just to give some contacts as you mentioned china's mine is largest trading partner china is the largest source of foreign 2nd largest source of foreign direct investment china also says a 2100 kilometer border with by and large in my on the supplies china with much needed natural resources such as jade such as timber as well sir china's obviously looking at this very closely now within my mother is quite a bit of china's sentiment among the people people are quite wary of this

increasing chinese influence into increasing chinese business interests in my mum but the government of aung sun suu kyi in spite of this china sentiment has seen the value of maintaining especially in economic relationship with beijing so we've seen. road initiatives in play a very huge role in supporting that ensured of war china was also a signatory to the aussie e.p. the regional comprehensive economic partnership that was spearheaded by beijing and also they had the china mind my economic chordal which was another trading agreement between china and. and of course china what's very key to remember is china was also a supporter one of the lone supporters of my own mother when it came to my own as approach to the raw hinge issue and in turn one also supported china in its

approach to sion john used to in the treatment of the reviewers both have said that they were not playing a hands off a sort of a hands off approach and that they were they didn't want to interfere and they respected each government's approach to to political. issues now interestingly one each china's foreign minister just recently visited at the beginning of january now that we didn't see any specific agreements signed per se but there was quite strong language used between the 2 leaders china referred to lie on law as a little brother china was also in talks with land law to supply vaccines to in its fight against corbett nineteen's it will be very interesting to see how ton of use this of course traditionally china before and city on time city came to power china had very close relations with the military junta in myanmar as well so it's also it's also easy to imagine that the military 100 light of that maybe being in talks with china or communicated at least to china any intentions they might have had to

to make this move the certainly china will be watching this very closely will be watching for any response from beijing over the next few hours thanks very much katrina you are with an update of course in beijing thanks katrina let's cross over to damien kingsbury's professor of international relations at deakin university and a board member of the australian b.m.r. institute joins me now on the phone from bell been there david good to have you with us back on the program we spoke to me earlier through the day as we assumed things were not well. we have confirmation of a state of emergency in other words a coup d'etat what happens next. this was what was expected i think that was the qualms the military started to move it's going to be very difficult to come back from that that position and really what we're saying now is an assignment that i'll stay in power for a year but we have seen this in the past of course when the military took power no

the beginning of not in sixty's i said they were just trying to resolve political problems at the time but in fact started in powerful top deckard so it can be buddies guess how long the military will try to hold on to power this time around but it's certainly very troublesome and barring a prospect for for me and not for the future indeed it seems that the control of the country has gone to the army chief be known yang we thought he was a pivotal player in events of the last certainly 24 hours it seems that he has certainly made his ball at this moment in time. and certainly not let langs a very powerful figure he does effectively control the military where there are factions within the military but he appears to be in control of the dominant hardline faction of the military is incredibly hierarchical and in myanmar so they

will follow their leaders certain struction street godless sort of her constitutional her democratic plan article might not say that it i think that that they have on the other just tolerated the democratizing process and i think that the prospect of the l.g.a. being emboldened we say a super majority following the november elections really started to worry them they thought that perhaps they'd be constitutional challenge and that the military would be signed sidelined from political processes and as a consequence from its economic involvement in the emma's business sector how do they hope to you might say move forward if they take these 2 steps all 3 steps back one wonders where does the investment come from to tie why there is a global recession even the strongest trading partner china who is happy to be the trading partner and that friend isn't a isn't

a bank and can't bankroll nations per se. one of. the military in myanmar has never been terribly concerned about the economic standing of the country i mean they certainly did look to that when they thought that the military could benefit directly on the senior officers could benefit directly and that really precipitated the beginning of a democratized action process that we know of course that for decades military drive myanmar's economy into the ground it thought that that the control of the state was more important than economic success and of course me and my now has given me an my military has the backing of china and china is very much more important now to a comic terms than it was. during that period when the military was in control of politics we had more correspondents about the potential role of voice to be heard

off from buying things suchi if she can get her voice out what do you think is going to happen to her right now b. what will be the scenario around her if she and if you think house arrest this you know a jail you think should be able to speak to the public in any shape or form. i suspect she's not under house arrest at this time she might get to house arrest at some point in the future but at least until things settle in myanmar i would imagine she will be kept in incommunicado that there will be no of a trinity to speak and if she could stay calm i'm pretty sure what she would be saying is that the supporters of the n.l. they should remain calm but they should not go out in protest simply because the potential for the military to react violently is very significant and i don't think she wants to be responsible for a massacre on the scale of that which occurred in nazi 98 which effectively led to the rise of the elderly as a political party as you said you know the the military don't really care about the

development of the country maybe such how influenced are they then by their neighbors by someone like china in terms of being able to move forward. and certainly china is probably the most important factor outside of me and my prior commitment i would imagine that the military are not really listening to the voices of other countries more democratic countries. so china is the single most important factor in and i think that the military would be looking to china for support for guidance and i would be making commitments that. are real state certainly within the chinese or that the chinese could turn a strategic cap if you like. i need to afford to just come to an end to our interview but thank you very much for your time and for your input as well of course we'll continue with our coverage of the. time with.

thank you so much for your time and your company.

if you want to help save the world. into your own. it's america's worst kept secrets cracked open the time of a pandemic exposed in the time of trump through the turmoil of 2020 the big picture traces a century of racial injustice to reveal how philanthropy politics and economics preserve structural inequality keep the white a supreme and black in its place a race for america part one on

a. i care about how the u.s. engages with the rest of the world we're willing to see it in taking you into a place you might not visit otherwise it feels that you were there. a military coup in myanmar its democratically elected leader is detained and the army has declared a state of emergency phone and internet services that disrupted state television says it's unable to broadcast to technical issues. for the back to watching al-jazeera live from doha we'll have extensive coverage of the situation in.