this is bbc news. i'm james reynolds. our top stories: permanently banned — twitter suspends president trump's account, saying that allowing him to continue would risk further incitement to violence. house democrats are to introduce articles of impeachment against president trump on monday, the second time lawmakers have brought such charges against the outgoing president. he's been an embarrassment to the country, embarrassed us around the world, not worthy, not worthy to hold that office. the us president—elect says he's fine with donald trump not attending his inauguration in 12 days‘ time. and heavy snowfall in spain has left hundreds of drivers trapped in their cars on friday as roads were blocked and madrid airport closed.

welcome to our viewers on pbs in america and around the globe. twitter has banned donald trump's personal account for good. less than a day after allowing him back onto the platform, following an earlier ban, twitter said that two of his tweets were highly likely to encourage more violence. here's our north america correspondent, david willis. he has been permanently banned from his preferred platform of communication. mr trump has, of course, long said he mistrusts the mainstream or, as he calls it, ‘lamestream' media, preferring instead to talk over its head directly to his supporters. and as you say, there are 88 million people who follow him on that platform, twitter. well, a short while ago,

the authorities at twitter said that he was being permanent band after close review of recent tweets from his account in the context surrounding them. they go on to say: of course, there was a 12—hour block placed on mr trump's account earlier in the week following that mass rally and the violence on the capitol, around the capitol, and now it seems that the preferred platform for mr trump is permanently closed to him, james. we normally, of course, hearfrom him on twitter, so how are we now going to hearfrom him? is hejust going to borrow someone else‘s phone and their account, or just migrate everything to tiktok? that is a very interesting question indeed. he does of course have, for the next 12 days at least, the resources of the white house and the presidency,

so he can issue press statements and can call a press conference and more or less go on television more at the drop of a hat, should he choose to do so. but he will not be able to tweet. the official presidential and governmental twitter sites remain in place, but donald trump's individual account is being closed down and twitter is clearly very keen, james, to prevent the president himself from gaining access to its platform. it is extraordinary to think a man who is currently not allowed to post even a cat video to twitter can, if he so chooses, still launch nuclear weapons. it is, and it's disconcerting to a lot of people in this country, not least the house speaker nancy pelosi who has been talking to the chairman

of thejoint chiefs of staff, mark a milley, saying that she is very anxious about this man having access to the nuclear codes. meanwhile, of course, there are attempt by democrats to get rid of mr trump before his term in office comes to an end, just 12 days from now. they're considering a variety of options, the so—called the 25th amendment, where the leader is unable to carry out the functions of the presidency, or impeachment, a more likely, perhaps, prospect, but time is running out. there are just 12 days left of this presidency and joe biden himself is very keen to avoid any more division in this country. the president is attempting to circumnavigate the ban by tweeting from different accounts, but twitter keeps thwarting him. his campaign handle @teamtrump has now also been suspended, and tweets sent from his official government account @potus were immediately removed. earlier i spoke to sarah miller from the think tank the american economic liberties

project, and i asked her if this was becoming a game of cat and mouse. it does seem like that. this is happening in real time. in addition to twitter taking down tweets from his official potus account, we see google play blocking access to a right—wing social media site and apple threatening to do the same, so this is happening as we are talking, kind of unfolding in real time. let's step back a bit. isn't america meant to be the land of the 1st amendment in which free speech, however obnoxious, comes before censorship? well, i will say this. twitter is a private company. facebook is a private company. google and youtube are private companies. they have the right to control what sort of content is on their platform. the problem here is much, much bigger than just donald trump and his obnoxious and, frankly, extremely dangerous content.

it is the fact that we now have kind of an internet ecosystem that is poison, that proliferates this sort of content, well beyond just donald trump, and creates these sort of conspiracy theory—fuelled ecosystems, the results of which we saw quite clearly on wednesday at the capitol. iran's spiritual leader, ayatollah khamanei, has an english—language twitter account. he recently posted, "those who ordered the murder of general soleimani, a general, as well as those who carried out this, should be punished. this revenge will certainly happen at the right time." couldn't this also be incitement? why is that account staying up, and mr trump's account down? that is a good question and should be asked of twitter. the overall issue here is these platforms, they can't and they shouldn't necessarily be the arbiters or gatekeepers of speech online, yet because they are so dominant, and twitter in fact is not particularly dominant, although it is politically influential, they are, in fact, that. and, going a step further, they profit from this type

of kind of viral toxic content because it is so addictive and keeps eyeballs on advertisements, so that's really what policymakers here in the us have to solve, the gatekeeping power of a handful of social media companies over the way that we communicate and the fact that their profit motive is based on sensationalist, dangerous and addictive content. let's look at the practicality of this. will this move by twitter and by other social media organisations stop president trump from being heard? no, not entirely, of course. there's many ways that he can communicate. he can communicate through the tv and fox news, through other social media channels, he's still the president.

there's no way to necessarily prevent donald trump from being heard at all, and when we step back and think about the long—term impacts, do we want a handful of corporations kind of limiting what political speech is acceptable and what isn't acceptable? obviously now we're in a really extreme situation and that's the fault of kind of policymakers for allowing this business model to exist in the first place and toxify our communications infrastructure but, in general, i think it just demonstrates what a dire situation we are in and how urgent it is that policymakers address it. as we mentioned earlier, president trump's opponents in the two houses of congress have called for him to be removed from office after the invasion of the capitol. this is whatjoe biden had to say a little earlier. he's been an embarrassment to the country, embarrassed us around the world, not worthy, not worthy to hold that office. if we were six months out, we should be moving everything to get him out of office, impeaching him again, trying to invoke

the 25th amendment, whatever it took to get him out of office. but i am focused now on us taking control, as president and vice—president, on the 20th, and to get our agenda moving as quickly as we can. i've been speaking to rachel vanlandingham, a national security law expert and formerjudge advocate in the us air force. she told me that when it comes to impeachment, anything is possible. the impeachment is just the first of two steps. an impeachment is akin to an indictment — it's a formal accusation of charges, high crimes and misdemeanours, by the house of representatives, against the president. then, however, what you need is — and the president has already been impeached once in late 2019 — and that doesn't have to take very long. again, it's formal accusations that have to be voted on by the house.

but what will take time is the next stage to remove him from the presidency and that is a trial in the senate and that trial requires due process, it means witnesses being called and it involves two—thirds of the senate voting then to convict the presidency. i think there are individuals that definitely want to do that because what it does is, besides removing him from the presidency, it can prevent the president from being — it prohibits him from serving in a federal office ever again, and that is from running for re—election in 202a. but again, the idea of having that senate trial in next 12 days, it's still friday here in the united states, in the next 12 days, is completely not realistic. but there is an interesting point on whether or not someone can have, the senate can hold that senate trial after the inauguration. the constitution is silent on that. let's look at another subject, the military. the speaker nancy pelosi, who's obviously a democrat, said she'd spoken to america's most senior soldier, asking him to take action against what she called an ‘unhinged president‘

to make sure orders were not being given. can a uniformed soldier disobey an order from the commander—in—chief? yes, if that order is patently or manifestly illegal. and i think representative pelosi, the speaker of the house, was not acting as a democrat, she was acting as someone who's sworn an oath to uphold the constitution, because when a president who has incited insurrection, that is an uprising against the very heart of democracy, that president has shown his inability, his lack of fitness, for the office. and therefore, for speaker pelosi, she must do everything in her power to make sure he does not continue to have access to the greatest power that there is right now which is nuclear weapons. but he retains his powers, as far as we can tell. how can... he absolutely does, and the folks in the military cannot disobey an order unless it's illegal, so what they need to do is reach down, find their

moral courage and say, "i'm sorry, mr president, we think your order is illegal." they have a constitutional duty to disobey those illegal orders. and what happens, if someone disobeys an order that turns out later to actually have been lawful — then they can be court—martialed, but that's going to take a long time. meanwhile, you're going to put some space in between an unhinged president who has incited insurrection against the united states and the nuclear codes. are there parallels to be drawn with the final days of president nixon's administration in 1974 when the chief of staff make sure that any military orders from the president quietly went to him to see if the president was issuing logical orders? i mean, there are parallels in the fact that you have a president that can't be trusted with the nuclear codes and with the command of the greatest military in the world. what's going on within the pentagon right now? i'm not so sure. stay with us on bbc world news, still to come:

for the first time during the pandemic, the bbc has been given rare access to the sickest patients with covid—19 in the uk. the japanese people are in mourning following the death of emperor hirohito. thousands converged on the imperial palace to pay their respects 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 despite of protests and violence from some black activist groups. they say international artists should continue to boycott south africa until majority rule is established. around the world, people have been paying tribute to the iconic rock star david bowie who sold 140 million albums in a career that spanned half a century. his family announced overnight that he had died of cancer at the age of 69.

the world's tallest skyscraper opens later today. the burj dubai, has easily overtaken its nearest rivals. this is bbc news. i'm james reynolds. our top stories: permanently banned — twitter suspends president trump's account, saying that allowing him to continue would risk further incitement to violence. house democrats are to introduce articles of impeachment against president trump on monday, the second time lawmakers have brought such charges against the outgoing president. twitter has banned donald trump's personal account for good. less than a day after allowing him back onto the platform, according to a poll carried out since the violence

on capitol hill, 70% of trump voters oppose the actions of the rioters who acted in the president's name, 68% of americans disapprove of the president's behaviour in the run—up to the storming of congress, and 57% of americans want mr trump removed from office as soon as possible. earlier i spoke to journalist steve merczynski. he's a supporter of donald trump and was at the capitol during wednesday's riots. steve gave his assessment of the current situation. it's been a terrible week but it's been a terrible week for the country because we have seen a lot of scapegoating going on over here as well, and a lot of political advantage and a search for a scalp over what happened here. the majority of trump supporters, as your polljust showed, do not support what happened. most were totally peaceful and just wanted to have the show of force that we felt there was a lot of shenanigans during the election and that it wasn't an honest election. ok, you say it wasn't an honest election. here's a partial list of those who thought it was. majorities in 50 state legislatures, 50 state governors including many republicans, the supreme court, numerous other courts, the republican attorney general, the public and vice president. why couldn't mr trump's

supporters accept that? there were also hundreds of affidavits from people who said that there was wrongdoing going on and even bill barr, the attorney general who, yes, he's criticised president trump now, but he did say that there was wrongdoing in this election. on 2 december, he said there was no fraud that changed the outcome of the race. 60 lawsuits, we can go back into this all day. 60 lawsuits were put in place and all knocked down. mr trump is now facing potential impeachment and also perhaps worse for him, potential disbarment from office. that means that he couldn't run again in 202a. look, this is the swamp taking control. the burning of the reichstag was a pretext for hitler to consolidate power and democracy. when we get to those comparisons, we take a bit of a step back. if you talk about the swamp, about scapegoats, there is another way

to look at scapegoating. it is simply a different word, accountability. look, there is accountability that should be appreciated from what the left has done as well. for four years, five years, president trump and his supporters were treated like scum. james, they pushed a russian collusion lie on the public, they called him a traitor and an agent of russia. 0k... they mocked trump supporters as idiots. isn't that a little incitement, james? what we're talking about now is not the left, we're talking about mitch mcconnell, we are talking about mike pence, bill barr, we're talking about the republican governor of arizona, the republican governor of georgia — these are all conservatives now on a different side from mr trump. and that's ok, i'm all for freedom of speech and difference of opinions. but when you want to shut

people up and frankly, the supreme court is partly to blame for what happened. the supreme court has a majority of republican—appointed justices. hurray, hurray. crosstalk james, they didn't want to hear the evidence. martin luther king said riots is the voice of the unheard. they should have heard the evidence, they should have heard the evidence. here's the thing. they chose to rule the way they did. when there's a rule of law, and you know this, when there's a rule of law, it means you accept what the courts are saying. you accept what nine unarmed lawyers tell you. that is the definition of the rule of law, and in the year 2000, nine unarmed lawyers said that al gore lost and they had to accept that. and when nine unarmed lawyers impose the rule of law, why can't that be acceptable? that's great. and hillary clinton didn't accept the election

because she said trump is an illegitimate president, how many democrats said that? and didn't that incite people to feel unheard and hated? let's get some of the day's other news. the number of coronavirus deaths in the uk has reached its highest daily figure since the pandemic began. a further 1,325 people died within 28 days of testing positive. the total number of uk deaths is now approaching 80,000. the european union has reached a deal with pfizer and biontech for 300 million additional doses of its covid—19 vaccine, doubling the amount of doses from these producers. each recipient of the vaccine needs two doses for maximum efficacy. portugal and ukraine have become the latest european countries to tighten coronavirus restrictions. portugal has begun a 15—day state of emergency, banning domestic travel on weekends and extending a curfew to most of the country. for the most sick —

those whose lungs have not been helped by a ventilator — there is another alternative. it's called ecmo. they're specialist intensive care life support machines which pump oxygen into the patient‘s blood, allowing the lungs to rest. there are only six nhs centres in the uk that offer the treatment to a few dozen patients, but now they're under pressure to take on more. 0ur health correspondent sophie hutchinson has been given rare access to an ecmo unit at the royal papworth hospital in cambridge. they are the sickest patients we've ever seen, even for patients on ecmo. is everybody ready? the patients are very poorly and in bigger numbers than we have ever had them. these are among the very sickest patients with covid—19 in the country. and this ward is their last hope. their lungs are so damaged by the disease that even ventilators haven't helped, and they've come here for the rarest form of life support from a machine known as ecmo. ecmo stands for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. it allows these

patients to breathe without using their lungs, giving their lungs a vital rest, so that they can recover. this ecmo centre was set up following the swine flu outbreak in 2009, but the coronavirus pandemic is now stretching it almost to the limit. normally on this ward, they have three patients on ecmo, but because of the pandemic and the damage that covid—19 does to the lungs, they have many more. in fact, each of these rooms has a patient on ecmo in it. they say they have 18 patients here today, and they've described it as a super surge. i know there is a limit that we will reach. i have no idea when that

limit will be there. by continuing, extending, extending, there will be a cracking point. hello, how can i help? and as well as treating patients, staff are working around the clock, fielding calls from other hospitals. there are a maximum of around 100 ecmo beds in the uk, but there have been 3,000 requests for patient referrals. it is relentless. patient after patient after patient. they take a long time to get better. they are the sickest patients we've ever seen, even for patients on ecmo. you know, they're not old patients, they are a younger cohort. and so it is... it is really, really difficult. and we are all, at times, finding it quite overwhelming. is everybody ready? yeah. ready, steady, roll. some patients are in their 20s and 30s. most are older. they have to be strong enough to withstand ecmo and the work

looking after them is gruelling. it's very difficult, it's very difficult, things are very intense. the patients are very poorly, poorlier than we've probably ever seen them and in bigger numbers than we've ever had them. it is a lot to deal with. we haven't got the staffing numbers to cope with the amount of patients that we have but we are doing what we can for the patients that we have with the time that we have. towards the end of our filming, another two patients arrived on the ward. staff are proud that everyone who meets the criteria for ecmo has, so far, been offered a bed here. but this extra pressure was hard to handle. we are not as resilient this time as we were last time, because we've really had no downtime, so to speak. but we still do it, because that's what we do. and what they're doing is saving lives. through their dedication and determination, perhaps more than half of these patients will eventually awake and go home to their loved ones. sophie hutchinson, bbc news. in spain, the heaviest snowfall

for decades from storm filomena has already left hundreds of drivers stuck and forced the closure of madrid airport. warnings of heavy rain and snow have also been issued for parts of italy, turkey and greece, as mark lobel reports. coronavirus bit is remembered in spain's capital madrid is a different storm sets in. parks were closed early. translation: for those who don't work, it's great. for those who work, it is a little more complicated. translation: i came to madrid and i was surprised, as it's not snowing in berlin. it must have to do with climate change. the snow in spain stopping people getting to their plane. real madrid's footballers among many stock on the tarmac at the airport, operations you suspended at times. storm filomena struck these houses on the portuguese island of madeira. translation: i am 66 years old and i've never seen so much

rain and water like i saw yesterday, i've never seen anything like this. rescuers were on hand after this very run aground in the canary islands. translation: we were afraid for the baby. as a blanket of snow covered eastern spain, lorries reached the end of the road. translation: we have remained in monreal where we are stuck. things look bad. after high tides here in malaga in spain's south and a months worth of rain injust two days in gibraltar, heavy weather alerts have been issued for italy, turkey, greece and the balkans. in between the fun, spaniards are being urged to avoid non—essential travel. many, now bracing themselves for a white weekend like no other they've ever seen in their own backyard. mark lobel, bbc news.

you can reach me on twitter. i'm @jamesbbcnews. hello. our spell of cold wintry january weather will be gradually easing through the weekend and into next week as things turn a little bit milder. but certainly on friday, we had a lot more snow for some parts of northern england. this was the picture in cumbria. north wales, as well, had a lot of lying snow. into saturday, still the odd flurry of snow around but most places largely dry, very cold and frosty with some freezing fog as well. look at these temperatures, first thing saturday morning at dawn around —11 degrees or so, could be —15 across some of the sheltered glens of scotland. so, widely subzero. we've got the freezing fog to contend with, particularly across parts of the midlands, central southern england and east wales as well. that should slowly tend to break up into low cloud

with some sunshine coming through, but in places, it could linger all day. now, a lot of dry weather through the day on sunday, some sunshine for north wales, northern england, eastern scotland, for instance, as well. but we have a front moving in from the northwest, that will bring some rain and some hill snow for the northwest of scotland. not as cold on saturday as it has been over recent days, with temperatures about 3—5 degrees for most. into saturday night now heading into the early hours of sunday morning, we have got that front bringing a bit more cloud further south, so not as cold across the north and northwest of uk. still, though, getting down to around —3 or “11 across the south of england first thing sunday. so it will start off chilly once again. we have got milder air gradually working in from the northwest. so a bit of a cloudier picture through the day on sunday. the best of any sunshine will be for central and and southern parts of england, eastern scotland should see a bit of sunshine as well. but towards the north and west, we have more cloud, and that will bring some outbreaks of rain, particularly to the west of scotland. it could be quite heavy, and as things are turning milder, some snowmelt could well lead to a little bit of flooding there. but for most of us,

a largely dry picture, turning a bit milder as well. now, as we head through into next week, we will keep low pressure to the north, higher pressure in the south, and this wedge of slightly milder air will work in across the country. still have cold air heading in from the north east. so a bit of a mixed picture as we have through the course of next week. temperatures not as cold as they have been recently, but things are looking little bit unsettled, particularly through the middle part of the week. but all in all, as we head into next week, it won't be as cold as it has been. there will be rain around at times, some snow over the hills, and the driest conditions in south. bye— bye.

this is bbc news.

the headlines: twitter has permanently suspended president trump's —— banned, personal account following what the social media firm called a "close review" of recent posts. it concluded that allowing him further access could lead to further incitements of violence. trump later tweeted from the @potus government account, "we will not be silenced!" this has since been deleted. democratic party members of the us house of representatives have circulated the draft of a new impeachment resolution against president trump. it accuses the outgoing president of high crimes and misdemeanours, including incitement of an insurrection. a white house spokesperson said impeaching the president would only further divide the country. president—electjoe biden said that donald trump had actively encouraged what he called a mob to enter the us congress. donald trump has said he will not attend the inauguration of his successor on january 20th. all visitors to the uk

from next week will have