hello you're watching bbc world news. i'm adnan nawaz. our top story this hour — counting down to a new president as congress battles over obama's healthca re legacy. democrats and republicans outline their case for the fate welcome to the programme — our other main stories this hour. berlin police detain a tunisian man in connection with the attack on a christmas market which left twelve people dead. as turkey claims that syria's ceasefire is being repeatedly violated — we hearfrom a british surgeon treating victims of the russian—backed bombing of aleppo. i'm sally bundock. in business: in need of a recharge. the trillion dollar tech industry gathers in las vegas — in search of the gadgets that will get it growing again. plus — polarising opinion —

we find out what's behind the scramble for lithium and whether the boom is heading for bust. in the final days of his administration, president obama has made a personal intervention to try to safeguard the cornerstone of his legacy. the incoming trump administration has promised to repeal obamacare, the president's radical reform of healthcare in the united states. the fight over its future will take place in congress, both houses of which are now in control of the republicans. laura trevelyan reports from washington. they swarmed across capitol hill today with rival entourages and duelling missions. one to protect his signature health—care law, the other to drive a stake through it. president obama and vice president—elect mike pence met with their respective lawmakers to plot their opposing strategies. according to those present, mr obama encouraged democrats to fight republicans hard, nickname their attempts trump care and not rescue them by helping to pass a replacement law. for his part, mr pence confirmed

dismantling obamacare is mission number one for the incoming administration. my message to members of congress is that we are going to be in the promise—keeping business and the first order of business is to keep our promise to repeal obamacare and replace it with the kind of health—care reform that will lower the cost of health insurance with our growing size of government. democratic leaders shot back saying republicans don't have a plan to replace obamacare and that americans will be worse off than before. so, we're here today to warn the american people that the republican plan to cut medicare, medicaid, repeal the aca, will make america a sick again. earlier in the day, president—elect donald trump weighed in in his trademark way. by tweeting that the existing law might collapse on its own, warning republicans: hanging in the balance is thejewel

in the crown of obama's presidency, his single greatest victory in eight years of partisan fights. applause obamaca re, or the affordable care act as it's officially known, expanded healthcare to more than 20 million people. republicans always saw the law as government over reach and the trump campaign seized upon rising costs for consumers as a rallying cry. the question is how to replace it without causing chaos and depriving needy americans, many of them trump voters, of their health insurance. jay wolfson is professor of public health and medicine at the university of south florida. hejoins us from tampa. professor, thank you forjoining us. is obamacare going to die at death afterjanuary is obamacare going to die at death after january 20 7 is obamacare going to die at death afterjanuary 20? i think the date

obamacare might die a death. there is lots of sword waving. what obamacare is lots of sword waving. what obamaca re has offered is lots of sword waving. what obamacare has offered americans is something they both want. they both wa nt something they both want. they both want americans to avoid having pre—existing conditions precluding them from getting care, they want to allow 26 —year—olds to continue to get coverage under their parents‘ posit —— policies, they want pharmaceutical costs to be reasonable for elderly citizens, they want more fraud control, they wa nt they want more fraud control, they want more quality assurance. what the republicans don't want is the mandate. they also don't want the inconsistencies that were built into this programme that the democrat said, "we will fix these later". but they didn't in part because of republican transience. we will see most of what we will see in this plan in pact with different ways of financing it and perhaps a more flexibility going to the states. how much do you think the big business

lobby is pushing the republican point of view? the hospital lobby is split on this. at the same time, the pharmaceutical industry and insurance industry don't want to see more powerjust going to the federal government and they want to see flexibility giving them more power. over the past couple of years, the major insurers were participating in the planet dropped out. at the same time, the cost of the plan for participants increased in terms of their deductibles and even those people who were paying to buy policies on the market, found that while they may have been playing 200- $300 per while they may have been playing 200— $300 per month for premiums had deductibles, annual deductibles that could have been as high as $7,000. they might have had a product they

couldn't use. for those citizens who we re couldn't use. for those citizens who were subsidised fully, it was a good deal. for the people who lived in the 21 states where medicaid expanded and covered more than 50% of obamacare of the sheer is, they did well. what the republicans said early on, should people not be able to continue to afford to subsidise then the states would bear the burden and that's what may happen now. ruefully if you could, finally, what you think it says about american society that it has taken since the 1960s for president obama to introduce these changes that would benefit the people who need it most —— briefly. would benefit the people who need it most -- briefly. the contrast between the united states and canada and britain and the much of europe is great. there is commonwealth in canada and europe where individuals.

we are still cowboys. i have mine, you get yours and don't compare to give to my fellow man when there is a calamity, we do well with catastrophes but we are very poor at prevention and planning towards long—term futures. we have cultural issues. that really gets at the core of the mandate that the republicans feel goes against everything culturally in america. we really appreciate your contribution. jay wolfson speaking to us from florida. in germany, police have detained a tunisian man in connection with the attack on a berlin christmas market which left twelve people dead. officials say the night before the attack, the man had dinner with anis amri, the driver of the truck, and had "very intense conversations" with him. greg dawson reports. more than a fortnight since he drove a lorry into a crowded market, police in berlin are still piecing

together who may have helped anis amri. following raid at a refugee centre in the city, it has been revealed that tunisian man suspected of meeting with anis amri the night before the attack has been detained. translation: we believe the suspect and anis amri had known each other since the end of 2015. our investigations found they met on the evening before the attack in a restau ra nt. evening before the attack in a restaurant. it spoke at length together. —— they spoke. restaurant. it spoke at length together. -- they spoke. a former flatmate of anis amri's is also being questioned. this investigation stretches beyond germany as police across europe tried to establish who else might have been involved. belgian investigators have released this image showing anis amri in one of brussels' main train station is a couple of days after the attack. swiss authorities have also revealed they are looking into claims he may have spent time there before travelling to germany. 24—year—old was eventually shot dead in mulan,

four days after going on the run, following a confrontation with police —— milan. friend it tests show the gun he used to shoot and kill an italian police officer with the same one he used to kill the polish driver of the lorry. governments are being accused of not preventing the attack and has been asked to strengthen security measures to prevent further attacks. one company added show is providing vr goggles. and another one is providing a sickbag because vr do that to you. it is in las vegas this event and i haven't been sent yet. we start in las vegas where thousands of technology

executives are gathering for the annual consumer electronics show which opens today. it's the most important event of the year for the tech industry — a chance for companies to show off the gadgets we will, they hope, soon be buying. it's a huge business and also an increasingly tough one. according to the consumer technology association — which organises the las vegas show — we will buy gadgets worth close to a trillion dollars this year. the problem is the industry as a whole is not growing. if it's accurate — that figure would be down around 2% on 2016. and it would be the fourth year in a row of falling revenue. smartphones are by far the world's most popular gadget, accounting for half of all tech revenue, but sales are expected to peak this year. so what are the growth areas? well, it could be the year of wearable technology, like smart watches. revenues from wearable devices are expected to soar almost a third this year, although stilljust a fraction of the overall market. and one of the biggest themes to watch —

artificial intelligence — more and more gadgets are being given the ability to learn. we have a report from the show in 20 minutes time. staying with technology — and one of the vital commodities used in everything from smartphones to electric cars — is becoming increasingly hot property. lithium has long been used in batteries for small gadgets — but lithium ion batteries are now also the dominant technology for electric vehicles — and there's a scramble on to secure supplies. on monday an australian mining firm sold a deposit of the metal in mali — west africa to a chinese buyer for almost 2000 times what it paid for it less than a year ago. so is this the start of a new commodity boom —

or a bubble heading for a bust? we'll be speaking to an expert in 20 minutes time. and we will have all the other business stories. just to warn you about comfort of the details coming up in the story. —— some of the details of the four people have been arrested in the us city of chicago over a video live—streamed on facebook — in which a bound and gagged man was assaulted. police say he has special needs. his assailants can be heard making derogatory statements against white people and president—elect donald trump. at one point in the video they use a knife to remove part of his scalp. here's the reaction from chicago police. it is sickening, sickening, you know? it makes you wonder what would make individuals treat someone like this the stock i have been a cop for 28 years and i have seen things you should not see —— cop. it still

amazes me. kits make stupid a shouldn't shouldn't call them kids, they are adults —— kids. that will be part of whether or not it is a hate crime, determine whether or not this is sincere orjust stupid. staying in chicago — and a federaljury has found six men from the gang known as the "chicago hobos" guilty of nine murders, racketeering, and a series of robberies, kidnappings and shootings. paris poe is one of the members, in what was the biggest gang trial in the city's recent history. the hobos rose to the top of the drug trade through extreme violence — one robbery victim was tortured with a hot iron. the hobos also shot dead a government witness in front of his children, and stole jewellery from a basketball star at gunpoint, outside a nightclub. the hobos street gang was as bad as it gets. these men were ruthless in their pursuit of crime and violence. they sought to join forces to enrich themselves and empower themselves through fear and through violence.

still on bbc news. the battle for mindarie are breakthroughs. the japanese people are in mourning following the death of emperor hirohito. thousands converged on the imperial palace to pay their respect when it was announced he was dead. good grief. after half a century of delighting fans around the world, charlie brown and the rest of the gang are calling it quits. the singer paul simon starts his tour of south africa tomorrow in spite of protests and violence from some black activist groups. they say international artists should continue to boycott south africa until majority rule is established. teams were trying to scoop up lumps of oil as france recognises it faces an ecological crisis.

three weeks ago, the authorities confidently assured these areas that oil from the broken tanker erika would head out to sea. it didn't. the world's tallest skyscraper opens today. the burj dubai has easily overtaken its nearest rivals. you're watching bbc world news. the main headlines: a battle is under way in washington over barack obama's legacy as he counts down his final days in office. berlin police detain a tunisian man in connection with the attack on a christmas market which left 12 people dead. a court in south carolina has begun a hearing to decide whether the self—confessed white supremacist, dylann roof, should receive the death penalty. he shot dead nine black churchgoers in charleston in 2015, and now, for the first time, the 22—year—old has spoken to the same jurors who last month found him guilty of 33 federal charges, including hate crimes.

sarah corker reports. prosecutors say mass murderer dylann roof has shown no remorse for a racially motivated attack that shocked the us. at charleston court house, a jury will now decide if he should be executed or sentenced to life in prison. the 22—year—old shot dead nine black worshippers during a bible study session in june 2015. roof is representing himself in court and said he plans to call no witnesses. here you have one side fighting and the other side sleeping and so there is no way you can get a just result. he's not going to give him any reasons to spare his life. in his opening statement, roof said "there is nothing wrong with me psychologically", apparently contradicting his lawyers who have said he is not mentally fit. the widow of one of his victims told the court she heard roof say "i'm

not crazy, i have to do this", during the shooting. in downtown charleston, the mother emanuel church where the attack took place, the community is still asking why. you kind of want to ask the question. don't you see the pain this has caused ? hey, what were you thinking? prosecutors said they found a note in roof‘s cell which read, "i have not shed a tear for the innocent people killed." the same jury who found him guilty of hate crimes at this church will decide whether he will be given the death penalty. sarah corker, bbc news. it infects more than 200 million people across the world every year, and kills around half a million, most of them children in africa. but now, according to researchers in the united states, a malaria vaccine that uses a weakened form of the parasite has passed a "critical milestone" in human safety trials. lead scientist drjames kublin from the malaria clinical trials centre in seattlejoins me now.

thank you for your time. what are the processes that the trial went through to reach this stage, and where their particular advances in science and take the allowed it to do so? certainly there were many advances over the last decade or more that have led to the clinical trial that we conducted now over a year and trial that we conducted now over a yearand a trial that we conducted now over a year and a half ago, and those advances include much of the genetic work, the genetic engineering, that was applied to the plasmodium parasite, the malaria parasite, to remove three criticaljeans and attenuate, all we can, that parasite to form the vaccine. so, you are at this stage now that you are, it

seems, quite happy with the human clinical trials. what next? well, this first human clinical trial, or first in the human trial, was really to confirm that it was safe in these volunteers, who are really heroes, in my opinion, volunteering their bodies and their considerable time to this clinical trial. so, it was proven to be safe, but also equally important for the future that it was fully attenuated, and that means that it did not cause a full malarial infection. these entered through the infected mosquito and then enter the liver and essentially died while residing in the liver and vast enabled the local immune response in the liver, the immune system in the liver, to form a robust immune response against the

parasite that then we hope would protect them from future infections. well, we say half a million children, many of the half a million victims of the children a year are in africa, does it make a difference to how an adult reacts as to how a child might react? is certainly does. unfortunately, as we grow older, our immune system is also become attenuated and weakened, so we hope a strategy such as this could actually work even better in adolescence or children, because of the robust immune responses that they have. thank you very much indeed, sir. 0h, they have. thank you very much indeed, sir. oh, thank you very much for your interest. turkey has warned that any syrian peace talks are under threat because of repeated violations of the ceasefire by government forces. leading up to the latest truce, hundreds of civilians who were injured in the russian—backed bombing of aleppo were evacuated from the city last month. many of them have ended up in hospitals in the rebel—held city of idlib.

a british surgeon, david nott, has been helping to treat them there, and he's been speaking to our correspondent quentin sommerville. his report contains some distressing details. the agony of east aleppo didn't end with its defeat by president assad. "he destroyed everything," cries this woman. "he killed her parents." some of the most desperate, including five—month—old maram, ended up in this hospital in idlib. her right arm is her only unbroken limb. a bomb hit herfamily as they were evacuating from the city. let's remove the dead bone. britain's david nott lead the surgery inside syria. they'll have to be the ones that go, definitely. maram is in danger of losing her leg, or her life. a piece of shrapnel

has broken her hip. as you can see, the fragment on the x—ray, i think we have found the fragment in the groin. it's a bit of shell, a bit of fragmentation from a military armament, a piece of metal. part of her left leg is missing, and the team treated that, too. this is a piece of fragment from a shell from an air strike. now back safely in london, dr nott talked me through the surgery. my heart actually bled for this little girl. it bled because she wanted me to help her, she couldn't move her arms because they were fractured. she couldn't move her legs because they were fractured. she had a big piece of iron on her other leg and she couldn't move that, and she had exposed bones. and it was probably... i went away and cried after that. it was really pitiful.

maram survived the surgery. dr nott operated day and night for a week. around 750 seriously injured people were evacuated from eastern aleppo. he was reunited with doctors he trained. they'd stayed in the city while the bombs fell. they're very good war surgeons, really good war surgeons. very experienced. and they can cope with lots of things which they couldn't have done before that. not only that, we saved countless hundreds and thousands of people's lives, and i think that was all we could ask for, to be honest with you. most of eastern aleppo's doctors are now in idlib, and there they'll be much needed. the civilians who fled have horrible injuries. it was multiple amputations, because those patients

were suffering from cold as well. so although you're doing an amputation, it's like getting frostbite in your amputated leg, and so we had to go higher and higher. the battle for aleppo may be over, but syria's medical needs are still enormous. the most gravely ill have been sent to turkey for more help. maram was one of them. sent there alone, we don't know if she survived. quentin sommerville, bbc news. the new york times says apple has removed the newspaper's app from its app store in china at the request of the chinese authorities. the paper says the request is part of an attempt by china to prevent its people from gaining access to independent news coverage. a spokeswoman for the times says they're asking apple to reconsider its decision. apple say they'd been informed that the app violated chinese regulations but weren't told what rules had been broken. a commuter train, derailed during the morning rush hour in new york, injured more than 100 people. the long island railroad train went off the tracks as it arrived

at the atlantic terminal in brooklyn. the fire department says the injuries are not life—threatening. the united arab emirates has outlawed the keeping of wild animals as pets. for some in the oil—rich gulf state, owning the likes of a tiger or cheetah is a status symbol. over the years images have appeared on social media of big cats out in the streets. they've included pictures of lions in the back of cars, and recently a video emerged that showed five tigers on a beach in dubai. the authorities are concerned about the obvious dangers involved, and from now on anyone taking a wild animal out in public will face a prison term, and a very heavy fine. very brief reminder of the main story that president obama has urged democrats in the us to fight to preserve his signature health—care policy, which the incoming trump administration has said it will begin dismantling as soon as president trump is in office, that

will be on the 20th ofjune. bye bye. hello there, good morning. quite a widespread frost to start the day today. most of us are firmly in some really quite cold air coming down from the north. and the cold feel to things is accentuated by the northerly breeze along the eastern coast. but, elsewhere, the winds are a little bit lighter, the skies are clear, allowing temperatures to plummet away, even towns and cities around about freezing or below, rural parts in the heart of england —6 or —7 degrees. so, a really cold for most. maybe not quite so cold in southern cornwall, five or six here, but you don't have to go too far inland you find much lower temperatures, —1, —2 at eight o'clock in the morning, so it will be a cold start across the bulk of england and wales. maybe even a little bit of ice for some on untreated surfaces in eastern parts of england where we've seen some overnight showers. some parts of northern ireland seeing a touch of frost, and the frost will be quite widespread across northern england into most of scotland, although the northern and western isles just about escaping. now, we've still have the brisk winds into the afternoon for eastern england, and maybe still a shower

or two, but most places will be fine and dry. a good deal of sunshine and light winds as well. but after that cold start, temperatures will be slow to rise. maybe only two or three degrees for northern areas, fours and fives down towards cardiff and london, but sevens and eights out towards belfast and plymouth. and then early on thursday evening the frost returns to many, but, by the end of the night, as cloud and rain and the winds picks up for the north and west of the uk, by the end of the night some frost and some fog is really confined to the south—eastern corner. but it will be a pretty grey day for many of us on friday. fog slow to clear in the south—eastern corner. should do eventually. all this rain piling in the north and west becomes light and patchy with some hill fog to go with that. it's a pretty grey day. that rain eventually gets down into the south—eastern corner by the afternoon. starting to turn a little bit less cold. we get up to what, 5—7 in norwich and london. but out towards the west, belfast and plymouth, ten or 11 degrees and that milder air continues to filter its way in through friday night

and on into saturday. we start to see the winds coming from the atlantic. always a mild direction. and it will bring a fair bit of moisture with it, a lot of cloud and a little bit of rain to start the weekend but the rain will be light and patchy and i think many places will be fine and dry. and those temperatures are back up into double figures in the south not much rain but a little bit of patchy rain and drizzle. this is bbc world news, the headlines. president obama has made a personal intervention to try to safeguard the cornerstone of his legacy. the incoming trump administration has promised to repeal obamacare, the president's radical reform of american healthcare. german police have detained a tunisian man in connection with the attack on a berlin christmas market which left twelve people dead. officials say the night before the attack, the man had dinner with anis amri, the driver of the truck. a court in south carolina has begun a hearing to decide whether the self—confessed white supremacist, dylann roof, should receive the death penalty. he shot dead nine black churchgoers in charleston in 2015.

a us federaljury has found six men from the gang known as the "chicago hobos" guilty of nine murders, racketeering, and a series of robberies, kidnappings and shootings. paris poe is one of the members, in what was the biggest gang trial