this is deja vu news live from berlin trying to break the bright six that block british prime minister theresa may prepares to present her plan b. for leaving the european union but will it be enough to satisfy a deeply divided parliament also coming up. as one of the world's most repressive countries now is back as then says it has changed its ways as the country's president visits germany we speak to his back journalist who says he was tortured in prison and asks if the country that really has changed course.

i'm brian thomas thanks so much for joining us the british prime minister treason is set to announce her plan before breakfast today as she tries to keep britain from crashing out of the e.u. without an agreement the prime minister is expected to focus on the so-called irish backstop that's the plan to avoid a hard border between northern ireland and the irish republic this comes after lawmakers overwhelmingly rejected her deal with the e.u. last week. joining us now live from london the state abuse barbara vai's all barbara do we know anything about teresa mayes plan b. yeah we know and we fear that her strategy today is going to come from the little self-help book for politicians if you fail try again try harder because what is going to be more or

less likely is that plan b. is planned a she's going to come back with the exit deal from the european union and to present it again and say ok i will talk to brussels again just one more time and try to wrest further concessions about the back stuff that you mentioned from them and then she will try to woo her own rose so own party the hard line breaks and cheers and the extremely skeptical northern irish do you p.d. in order to support her so she just does the whole thing again like one small was feeling ok well barber of the trade secretary for britain liam fox has come out saying that remain parliamentarians are trying to hijack. what does he mean by that . what he means is that the ten spy parliamentarian see across party lines to somehow wrest control over this completely derailed breakfast process from the

government tourism maze cabinet is split at least four ways about how to proceed how to go on and what the end result should be and paloma now says this can't go on because to resume a still seems to be running down the clock with sixty seven days before the official breaks of days on march twenty ninth so the reason may wants to vote again on this may be in mid february she simply tries to build up pressure and paloma just trying to get control of amendments to sort of table their own changes to the legislative process in order to sort of make a dent in this in order to maybe get no deal off the table maybe even get a second referendum all maybe get at the very much softer brecht's it barbara thanks so much for that from london let's get the view from the e.u. now we are joined by teri schultz and brussels terry are there any indications that the u.s. prepared to reopen negotiations so long so very long with britain. not

really there's not to brussels very much feels that until to reason to reason may's plan b comes out they don't really need to have a different reaction because they've said to the u.k. time and time again the deal that we that we've both signed is the deal that you're getting now there is a lot of discussion now about the timeline for this deal should britain get a longer period to come to its agreement internally about what the deal should look like but there are complications with that too you've got european parliament elections coming up in may and what would you do with the u.k. then should britain be allowed to put forward any peace so there are really no good options but the timeline at least is under discussion there is no appetite that we've seen so far to reopen this agreement and rediscuss all of these issues among all twenty seven other countries ok well terry one new development we've got is britain's daily telegraph is reporting that theresa may is even considering amending the one thousand nine hundred. eleven and

a bid to break the brics deadlock how could that potentially help. i haven't seen anyone in brussels saying that would help it seems like a very desperate measure because one of the things that all twenty seven countries are absolutely unwavering on is support for ireland and support for the irish backstop a european union has said that that is not negotiable that this is not something that the u.k. should expect to change to allow the backstop to be removed from that agreement or to be changed in any way the irish of course have the lead role on this but they've got everyone behind them and that's repeated time and again so that would be very creative measure and it doesn't seem like that will be getting much support from the e.u. side and sir thanks very much for that from brussels. now for a look at some of the other stories making the news this hour voting underway today in a referendum in the southern philippines the public's right to decide it's

a largely muslim region and gain greater autonomy in the majority catholic country the proposal is part of a twenty four thousand peace deal between the government and muslim separatists. israel's military said is has struck a rainy and targets of its military inside syria the israel defense forces announcing an operation on twitter pictures from within syria claiming to show the country's air defenses repelling that attack it is highly unusual for israel to admit attacking targets inside syria. greek nationalist and patriotic groups of clash with police in the capital athens tens of thousands took to the streets sunday to protest the deal and settling in the early three decade old name dispute with macedonia would allow greece's northern neighbor to rename itself the republic of north macedonia. and police in northern ireland have arrested two more suspects in connection with a car bomb attack in the city of london diary that brings the total number of

arrests to four the bomb exploded outside the city's courthouse today there were no casualties police say the attack may have been carried out by a dissident republican group the new ira well president of his backers than is in berlin for talks today president chavez caught mere z.o.f. wants to deepen ties with berlin his trip comes at a time of change for this central asian country once known for its repair repressive regime it's now opening its doors to the rest of the world in introducing liberal reforms. and a moment we'll talk to a human rights campaigner but first we have this report from the news back capital from did abuse your ear shadow he spoke to a journalist who spent nearly two decades in prison. so it really goes on after nineteen years behind bars yusuf knows him around of is enjoying every moment of his newfound freedom of. the fifty five year old journalist was jailed in the late

ninety's for supporting a new position petition raising the rod of is one of hundreds of who had to pay for their political views with their freedom. i was tortured in prison. they always found reasons to punish me and came up with new ways to physically torture us political prisoners. we had to unload hot bricks from railway wagons yes the bricks had just come out of the oven and we had to load them into cars they're moving by the second issue. is one of the least sixteen so-called political prisoners who have been released from prison in the last two years. the main reason i was freed was thanks to our current president. it came down to his political commitment his will to personally stand up and behalf of the prisoners. that the government's human rights envoy has

also praised president shafqat museo if he's promoted that his country is opening up he says that thanks to the president finally have an opportunity to defend their rights. not g.'s to the rubbish as if. we used to receive two hundred complaints a year most last year we got nine hundred today we don't have a single political prisoner in our jails because the president personally monitors the situation we have changed as a country the western and. a lot has changed in his biggest town in the last two years as the country is gradually opening up to the outside world but with people still detained on political charges in the country's prisons the rule of law still seems a long way off here in whose biggest. human rights watch says there are still nearly

a dozen incarcerated for their political views including priests soldiers and journalists but unlike the human rights organization the country's government doesn't consider them political prisoners. and yet change is tangible in its biggest corrupt police are being openly criticised powerful intelligence officials ousted and travel regulations for citizens are being relaxed after four i hope there will be real reform and concrete results i want is pakistan to finally become a true democracy because the. other reforms are also taking place in this biggest unknown not just in human rights. central asia smoke's populous country seems to want to put an end to its own story terry and past. so where are these reforms headed to talk about that i'm joined by hugh williams and director of the europe and central asia division of human rights watch thanks for coming in here and i

have your what do you make of this pakistan's bid to improve its human rights record is it a sign the country wants to deepen its relations with europe with the united states it certainly is i mean this is a country with a deeply troubled human rights record for decades has never been free elections the most because on the never been opportunities for people to speak out two years ago as we heard in the report a new president came along the old president died and he seems to be keen to make a difference he recognized i think that to improve economic ties foreign investment they needed to improve their human rights record and he's made some small but significant steps allowing some political prisoners out of prison now in a little bit more media freedom changing a few laws on n.g.o.s and so on it's a step in the right direction but as we heard it's a deeply or thorough tarion country still so it's only a small step and much more needs to be done ok shugart mir's here you have the presidents in berlin today how does this all fit in with this visit. well if it's

in the sense that president wants to have closer ties with germany is the most important partner within the e.u. they held a large business conference last week and they they hope they'll be some big german companies investing in the country germany has a troubled relationship with the past a decade ago there were even european union sanctions on us back is that because of the human rights record germany was one of the countries which was trying to lift those sanctions most quickly because it has security ties with was pakistan over afghanistan so germany has some homework to do itself but it's going in the right direction it also wants to support mr ms a yo yo so it's about human rights and it's about economic. and business ties ok so both are mixing in together there what does berlin want out of this as it will be putting pressure on his back to stand on the president to open up more for example to push for

a free press we saw that journalist released after almost twenty years in prison you know is that going to play a role in these discussions to go it is very important in this region we certainly hope so germany's please with us back is that partly because it won't close relationship among countries in within central asia unless pakistan has been saying we want that too but we certainly think germany needs to prioritise human rights free press free movement of people. release of political prisoners more space for civil society those things need to be going hand in hand with all the other elements of security and business ties they need to be saying human rights is high on the agenda if you want further support from germany ok briefly are you hopeful that while i'm hopeful and hopeful that chancellor merkel president will raise those issues and the germany will be a part know with us pakistan in moving towards a better human rights record you williamson director of the european central asia division of human rights watch thanks very much thanks for having me. no inns of

star gazers got a real treat overnight that thanks to a rare lunar eclipse it's being called the super blood wolf moon a lunar treat was visible north and south america to cross the atlantic in western and northern europe as you can see here she hear the moon appeared to turn this stunning shade of red if you missed it you have a way to head here in europe it will be twenty twenty nine until we see another total lunar eclipse. skitter minder now of our top stories this hour the british prime minister theresa may is due to unveil her so-called plan before bracks later today is expected to set out how she plans to end the country's parliamentary deadlock that's after lawmakers rejected her new divorce deal last week. this is deja vu news live from berlin don't forget you can always get the latest news and information around the clock at a website that's at u.w. dot com for now though for me brian thomas the entire news team thanks so much for being with us.

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