green card to the viewfinder asia series. on al-jazeera. out of the phantom taliban world love we are the world grappling the extra mile they are the media don't go we go there and we give them a chance to tell their story. a surprise move in the 2nd impeachment trial of donald trump as the senate votes to allow witnesses. in a dramatic day on capitol hill we thought we were heading for a conclusion the senate is deciding on the way ahead and how many witnesses will actually be called. time sam is a that you're watching al-jazeera live from coming out. tightens

its grip tens of thousands to stay in pro-democracy protests for an consecutive day . if your former head of the european central bank has been sworn in as italy's new prime minister the time of both an economic and health crisis call for action and mock funeral held in the paul to express outrage after the gang rape murder of a 17 year old girl. $1700.00 g.m.t. that's midday in washington d.c. where former u.s. president dogged drums unprecedented 2nd senate impeachment trial has been briefly

adjourned the hours after the senate voted to allow witness testimony after several hours of debate of 55 voted for and $45.00 against in the end trump is accused of inciting an insurrection proceedings are due to resume in half an hour's time. we have 2 correspondents on this story in a moment we'll go to and they gallacher in west palm beach in florida close to dan trump's residence but 1st let's go to alan fischer on capitol hill allan so we heard. patrick please saying this is adjourned until 1230 when they meet again where do we pick up what happens next. well apparently according to jeff merkley who is senator from oregon they are discussing at the moment just how many witnesses will be a load by both sides both the democrats and republicans want to get this done quickly the don't want those dragging on for weeks on end it means that the trial

will probably go on for another couple of days until they can get the depositions as so they're talking about whether or not there will be 2 or 3 witnesses or perhaps as many as 10 both sides will come to an agreement they are discussing witnesses at the moment a decent miller who is one of donald trump's closest advisers has been seen on capitol hill with a list this long and includes everyone who is included in their 11 minute video that the eared on friday they're not going to get that many more chance to be honest of getting the tooth fairy in the easter bunny on the list there is going to be a number of people that the democrats will want to speak to in the interests of fairness there are a number of people that the republicans will want to question as well so they will be deposed of the. statements will be given to the senate and then they will make the decision you're asking eliot one of the chances of donald trump being convicted ted cruz one of big donald trump's biggest supporters and someone who has been advising his defense team even though he's meant to be an impartial juror he has

appeared just in the last 10 minutes or so outside of the chamber saying that he thinks there are 55 votes to convict give or take one or 2 which means of course that the democrats for well short of the 67 votes that the need to convict but. clearly the democrats are working on the principle that even if they can't change senators minds these are stories from witnesses that have to be put in front of the american public it can't just get reported in a few media outlets they have to be done right here on capitol hill in full view so then the american people can make their judgment on donald trump even if the senate makes its judgment and decides not to convict him of high crimes and misdemeanors so are when they adjourned again i think in about 26 minutes are we expecting them to announce all of that and say we've agreed on the list here's around as he said it might be we think as many as 10 people these are the witnesses and will break up

for a couple of days and come back to this is that the kind of game plan we're looking at now. really it's a bit unclear i mean the could come back and then go into recess again put in place what's called a quorum call which is just a technical maneuver which allows them to go off and discuss some issues as they try and hammer out exactly how many witnesses they're going to speak to when this is going to be done where it's going to be done are they going to call them here to capitol hill are they going to be done elsewhere you had donald trump's lawyer saying that he had a list of hundreds of people he wanted to call and he called them to their office in philadelphia or that was never going to happen it might work in a criminal case this is not a criminal case this is the senate it's an impeachment hearing the rules are different here and so that was just quite plainly nonsense and you had that reflected in the senate chamber when senators actually laughed at donald trump's lawyer for suggesting such a thing so we're hoping they will come back here's a couple of things that might slow things up to morrow is sunday tends to be

a day of rest here in the u.s. so the sit on sunday if they don't have to and perhaps a load deposition if they're being done by zoom as jimmy ruskin suggested and get those done on sunday monday is also a federal holiday it's presidents here in the united president's stay here in the united states many people thought we'd be done and dusted by monday anyway so that never came into the initial calculations of hole on this might last but that just might push everything into the middle of next week the senate was due to be recessed anyway so it doesn't impact a lot on the legislative agenda but as i said earlier would be interesting to know what the white house thinks of this joe biden had refrained from commenting too much on the impeachment proceedings after the democrats showed their video on wednesday which had brand new video of the security cameras here and how close some of the senators had come to being caught up by that violent more swept into the hill he thought that that video might change a few views but he's really not said very much on the impeachment but he has got

a legislative agenda he would like to get through the house. and through the senate and he really doesn't want things be gummed up by an overly long impeachment process or thanks so much allan let's go over to and the gallagher he's live for us in west palm beach in florida and andy before the proceedings they kicked off we were told the president was in a better mood happy with the performance well his lawyers yesterday what's the word on his will mood now that the senate took this surprising turn to agree to call witnesses. what reportedly he's deeply unhappy which is not surprising i think the former president probably expected this all to be over on saturday he could perhaps take to the golf course now everything's been thrown into into complete chaos but the central question here is that when the former president took his oath he took an oath to defend the constitution against threats both foreign and domestic and what we had on january

the 6th was a domestic terror attack so if witnesses are called by the house managers the democratic house managers and they are among them is people like kevin mccarthy who reportedly called the president during all this and 2 the reports is that the president sided with the riots is not with protecting the constitution which he swore to protect so it's a game changing scenario none of us expected this to happen but everything changed last night after herrera butler the republican politician from washington state took to social media to read les that phone call that kevin mccarthy had told her about and then ended her tweet by saying look if there are any of you out there with any other information about this now is the time to speak that changed everything in this 2nd impeachment trial of dr j. trump so i would imagine he is deeply unhappy he wanted this to be over very quickly i think can choose day where the remarks happened he wasn't happy with his

lawyers performance. but on friday he was because they gave a fairly comprehensive argument that only lasted 3 hours that shows how quickly they wanted this to be over because they actually had about 16 hours to present their arguments and only took up 3 so it's clear throughout this entire 2nd impeachment trial that trump wanted this to be done and dusted fairly quickly and then move on perhaps to make some kind of comeback to have perhaps kind of seek revenge on those that voted against him but now everything is changed we are not clear on how many witnesses will be called from both sides we're not clear how long all of this will take but this is absolutely the last thing that the president former president wanted to happen randi gallica there well during the recess in the trial of the former president don't trump republican senator ted cruz spoke to the media condemning the decision to call witnesses we were coming into this morning in

the democratic senators had agreed witnesses were not needed everyone expected that we'd have closing arguments and a vote today and then at the last minute the house managers change their mind they decided they wanted to call a witness jessica a rare a butler i think what happened is leftist twitter got really upset last night that they were calling witnesses and i think the house this is a political theater and i think the house managers were feeling heat on their left flank and so they decided they surprised schumer and the democrats by saying they wanted witness it. let's go back to andy gallagher is live for us in west palm beach in florida are we going to see the defense team take the strategy now as we get into the issue of which witnesses to call to try and focus on putting some of the responsibility on the democrat side for any failure in security and raise some of those questions which are circulating in the web sphere about allegations of

failures to call in security by nancy pelosi and so on. i mean i think that that goes to a kind of. conspiracy theory that's going around in the dark where perhaps that nancy pelosi may have told the f.b.i. you know not to respond to this but that's frankly a ridiculous theory and i'm sure that trumps defense team right now are scratching their heads wondering what to do because they just simply did not expect this remember this legal team that trump put together was only hired by the former president a few days before the 2nd impeachment trial even happened the lead lawyer that we've seen so much on the last few days is an injury lawyer he's not a constitutional lawyer the way he's speaking in the in the houses is not really being welcomed by many people in there because he thinks he's in a court of law and he's not this is a political process so i think they really need to see to to get themselves

together and decide which witnesses they want to call because this is really going to be vital right now because at the end of the day if the democrats by calling perhaps people like kevin mccarthy and herrera butler could sway some of the republicans who will ultimately decide the president's fate that is significant because if kevin mccarthy gets up there and says yes i've made this call this is how the call went this was the president's the former president's response that's pretty damning and i think also it's not that hard for these people to get phone records and find out exactly what time these calls were made exactly what the. resident the former president was aware of and in particular was the former president aware of the danger to his vice president mike pence someone who was a very loyal lieutenant throughout that 4 year period that trump was in office and whose life was put in danger not just his life the life of this family as well remember that hence and try didn't speak for days after that happened and tensors

been very very quiet in regards to the entire situation since then the crux of the question here is did don't strung up hold his oath to defend the constitution against threats both foreign and domestic domestic being the key word if the democrats can prove through people like kevin mccarthy that he took the side of those people that rioted in the people's house then that is significant not can't understate that really that it will be extremely significant so it's a wait and see situation at the moment to see how many witnesses are going to be called and key to all this who they will be. will have to see thanks so much and they gallacher there well in a heated exchange dog trumps legal team reacted to impeach a manager's call for witnesses by threatening to issue at least 100 depositions in response last night congresswoman jami herrera butler of washington state issued

a statement confirming that in the middle of the insurrection when house minority leader kevin mccarthy called the president to beg for help president trump responded and i quote well kevin i guess these people who are more upset about the election than you are we would like the opportunity to subpoena congresswoman herrera regarding her communications with house minority leader kevin mccarthy if they want to have witnesses. i'm going to need at least over a 100 depositions the only thing that i ask if you vote for witnesses do not handcuff me by limiting the number of witnesses that i can have i need to do a thorough investigation that they did not do i need to do the 911 style investigation that nancy pelosi called for.

melanie sloan is an attorney and former federal prosecutor she joins us from washington d.c. good to have you with us what's the bottom line now that the senate has decided to cole witnesses for the direction of this impeachment trial when i think there's going to be a lot of back and forth now on what that means exactly how many witnesses are we talking about are they going to be depositions or are there going to be witnesses who speak before the senate i think it's it's not at all clear where we are i think that there are other interesting witnesses that. impeachment managers but undoubtedly like to hear from in addition to kevin mccarthy and other republican members of congress who were present that day or spoke or have spoke with president trump there is for example on the president's deputy national security adviser who

was at the match injure and he resigned the day after your january 6th apparently in response to what was the president's response to january 6th he was in the room with the president throughout this that ruby a very or this year similarly short. vice president pence is chief of staff somebody who would also have great knowledge of how the president youngblood the issue with mike pence and it seems now that the entire issue is triggering will resolve around what the president said about when he knew mike pence was in serious danger and what to do it in response to that so i think that those are the kind of witnesses people will be looking at with this is that they're republicans are talking about me when they say a 100 that it's income friends well really what you're 100 witnesses they would

want surely if they want to call me and see pelosi that he is not something that will go well for the republicans that undoubtedly will work to the benefit of the house managers case i mean see close he also was calling for help throughout the route in january 6 insurrection so it's hard to see how that works in their favor and as with 99 other people they want hard to say jason miller one of the president's top aides and who's still with him was walking around with a piece of paper this morning saying that he there were 301 witnesses that they wanted as so clearly the senate is not about to have 300 witnesses or even 100 which says we're probably talking in the nature of 5 witnesses if that and i think that's what's going to be debated and maybe we'll learn a little more when the senate comes back at 1234 and help us analyze hay of the strategy of the house impeachment managers because up until things kicked off today

it was very much up in there as to whether they would really try to push for witnesses to be cold on all want to balance. i think we've learned so much in the past day that they didn't know before i think the house managers were not aware of kevin mccarthy his conversation with the president that yelling match that the 2 of them had about the level of danger they were and the level of danger that vice president pence was in we started hearing about that a couple of days ago with senator tommy tuberville talking about the call that he received from the president a call that was 1st intended for actually senator mike lee and he handed the phone off senator lee so we were starting to get some inklings of conversations that trump was having with people in the chambers which and underscored the fact that he was aware of the problems that were going on but then this conversation with kevin

mccarthy where mccarthy flat out years didn't ask trump to call the rioters off and trump says you know kevin mccarthy you don't care about the election results as much as they do and frankly just refuses to call them off and is later sending tweets that seems to continue to incite them so i think that's really the issue and then last night we heard from this republican congresswoman who had never been a factor before and she sends out a tweet on social media saying that now is the time for patriots to come forward and tell the truth about what happens so i think that the house impeachment managers probably see that there is perhaps an opening here on the other hand as much as they would have might have thought that you have to the contrary this morning. mcconnell the senate and minority leader now says he can't see voting to convict and he is basing his argument not on the how the president incited the

insurrection but on the the very faulty argument that the constitution doesn't allow for the president to be impeached that has been refuted by nearly every constitutional law expert including the. he very very conservative constitutional law expert and yet mcconnell is hanging his hat on now to avoid having to comment or vote on whether the president incited the erection so the fact is it doesn't look like this is really going to change vote seems like all minds are already made up by the house impeachment managers perspective i think the point is to convince the american public's to make the case so that the public knows exactly what the president's war was in the january 60 action all right now let's analyze that the defense strategy of team donald trump how do you think in your experience as a public prosecutor how do you think the other side is going to have to position themselves now that they've had to deal with this curve ball of witnesses being called are they going to go more for the narrative of double standards are they

going to go more for the narrative of shifting the responsibility to others who should have been responsible maybe on the democratic side to counter this insurrection or riots. well frankly they seemed to have their strategy they were shocked by this they already apparently had plane tickets home they were not expecting this and i think when they're threatening a 100 witnesses they are just trying to bluff their way into a strategy it's it's hard to imagine who they want to call that will help them they've been really trying to thread the needle through this whole trial refusing to even admit that president trump lost the election and they want to go ahead and call and see pelosi or harris it's all of those are the people that they've been threatening to call those don't seem like witnesses very likely to help them. so

given the events that took place. it's it's hard to imagine right now their strategy on which witnesses they think could be helpful to them perhaps it will be other witnesses who were in the room with president trump who were who are very loyal to president who will try and say that the president in fact didn't understand the depth to which the rioters had penetrated the capitol building and he was not in fact encouraging them that he came out and tweeted that they should go home that he made the video later saying that everybody should go home of those old witnesses will cut both ways though because the problem is any witness that they bring out is subject to cross-examination and all of those witnesses when trump did finally tweet and make the video he had to be cajoled and pressed into making those statements to sell the rioters to go home eventually and even then he

told them how much she loved them and so i there are a lot of witnesses who brought just from the events that we know that were taking place in the white house can make the president look really good here. and is about the court of public opinion on so many levels thanks so much for your analysis on that one melanie sloan. now to some other news in maine mark holes for democracy are getting louder while the military jointer is refusing to concede the ground for 8 straight days huge crowds have been rallying across the country they want their deposed civilian leader aung san suu kyi and her allies to be released but the jointer is tightening its grip and the suspended a law requiring court orders to detain people longer than 24 hours but despite

promises by the military to release prisoners arrests appear to be intensifying one rights group says $320.00 political prisoners have been detained since the coup scott hyla has more on the protests. there is an increase that's at least the word we're getting from people on the streets there who have been on the streets since the protests really began since the movement to get as many people out from many different walks of life out in the streets are saying you know friday we saw spike in numbers the biggest numbers yet they say and again that's and has painted today in those pictures really indicate that that's probably what's going to be in store toward the end of the day now we won't get official numbers because the police or authorities are really counting this is coming from the organizers themselves and there is a feeling that you know that the the security forces are allowing them to do this maybe because it's gotten so big maybe they think they're going to fizzle out but that's not the case because they keep coming out in big numbers what's interesting

is they're very pinpoint when it comes to where they gather the biggest numbers are gathering and that's at the embassies in the end don because obviously for this movement a key key issue is the international community's reaction. knowledge of what's going on in myanmar so that's where they're focusing in yangon there's a large area that they've gathered straight right through you know right after the coup on february 1st this intersection near yangon university that's where they've been gathering as well so you know when you look at on the streets you know it's very interesting to see different walks of life different groups but also how creative they've gotten in in presenting their protest movement so it's interesting that that's really kind of a change from from previous uprisings in myanmar that ended in violence but now right now you know we saw violence on tuesday but right now things are peaceful from ins out who is the executive director of the main modern institute for peace and security he says the military doesn't seem to view the

protests as a direct threat. i don't think at this point the military may make a move because of the protests military may see the current protests it's mostly nonviolent and also not directly threatening to unseat the military and the a lot of the ministries a still functional. so the protests are calling for civil disobedience to stop walking but on the other hand in a p daw it is a bit different a difficult to engage in that kind of protests because it is quite isolated and this is the area but he much. we have from most of the populated areas so it's easier more easier to control the civil servants but despite the civil. disobedience movement some of the ministries are functional as of the military may be that kind of protests are not necessarily directly threatening its

power base so they may tolerate. at least for the near future a lot of us. who were involved in the pro-democracy movement in the past a on like a high a lot like a we we activate our safety protocols and we don't even sleep in one place we move one after another and a lot of activists even though they are not arrested a concern that they may be targeted next so yes we all a concern more or less i think the military government me ignore the current protests and more or less until they probably find some evidence that they can claim that they are legitimize why they have to launch a coup so now what i thought was a lot of investigations are going on against the n l d on on the potential voting irregularities and also foreign funding and also

on this some of the corruption charges so the military may come up with those whatever finding the half that they may come up with a transition a plan. at least 7 people have been arrested and 20 police officers injured a renewed protests in bangkok according to thai officials demonstrators of rallied in response to the jailing of all pro-democracy activists who are in custody pending trial on charges of insulting the king protesters have been calling for a new constitutional monarchy reforms a little past year. a strong earthquake of an estimated 7 point one magnitude is hit off the northeast coast of japan the quake struck near fukushima prefecture but no tsunami warnings have been issued it's caused blackouts and left almost 1000000 households without power the quake shook buildings in the capital tokyo and

elsewhere no major damage so far been reported at least 4 people have been killed and 7 others injured in an attack near somalia's presidential palace in the capital mogadishu. police say a vehicle rigged with explosives managed to get away from a checkpoint at high speed despite security forces opening fire the driver managed to reach a police post and detonate the explosives no one is yet claimed responsibility for the attack. in a few minutes donald trump's impeachment trial will resume after a short break let's return to clare finkelstein's professor of law and philosophy at the university of pennsylvania she joins us now from philadelphia good to have you back with us so what can we expect once this resumes right now. i expect that in the last 45 minutes the 2 sides have been talking about how many

witnesses to have and reports are that it may be somewhere between 5 and 10 but that's about the size of the witness list that i would be expecting i also expect that there may be some announcement about ground rules and also timing when those witnesses are going to be called and is there an amount of time that will be set for each side to call witnesses a certain amount of time either per witness or collectively for all the witnesses that each side gets to call together chlamydia all of that change once we start hearing from witnesses if one says well i heard x. y. z. and from someone else i very much hope that they will have those flexible rules because as they start calling witnesses as you suggest there may be a need to.