this is g w news why the from berlin tonight europe provides a reality check for britain's brags that renegotiation hopes that. what that special place. in the code looks like. cool promoters but she was out the relish. to cut rates say a special place in hell for europe's tempers free as british prime minister to resign may prepares to go cap in hand to brussels that's after trying to sell her

deal in northern ireland this week also coming up amnesty international accuses the united arab emirates of funneling western on's to militias in yemen and he says those militias have used those weapons. and it's the annual event that no movie buff here in germany can afford to miss the berlin film festival the valley now and gets underway tomorrow to go was are already lining up for this year's hot tickets in the race to see if you win the gold and be. good to have you with the british prime minister theresa may heads to brussels tomorrow and the storm clouds are already gathering today the european council president donald tusk vented his friend. ration over brett's saying that british

euro skeptics deserved and i'm quoting here a place in hell it was a sign of health free good tempers have become in europe and a sign that may's hopes of extracting fresh concessions from the european union could be duped. with only fifty days to go and no solution in sight fear of a hard break that is growing day by day and so is the frustration in brussels watching terrorism make head towards a no deal exit. what that special place in the code looks like for those who promoted but fit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it's safe. a provocative statement that irish prime minister leo overact are predicted would not sit well with those it was aimed at. not only in the press their response coming out of westminster was fast and furious

because. i don't recall even the president insulting members of this house members of the government and the british people in such a way. others took a step back to look at the bigger picture. her way was to speak her sometimes the truth hurts. for nigel for raj the former leader of the euro skeptic you camp toasts comment as proof of why britain wanted to leave the e.u. and the first place after brek said we will be free of unelected arrogant bullies like you and run our own country sounds more like heaven to me. heaven hell or somewhere in between it's up to to reason may after meetings in belfast today the british prime minister will be back in brussels tomorrow seeking fresh concessions on the withdrawal agreement however neither donald tusk nor european

commission president john clarke you are open to renegotiate the deal. yes a very strong words today in the talk about how the words if they fell on deaf ears are friendly ears we're going to pull in quick he is in london he's an associate fellow at the europe program at the think tank chatham house and from brussels our very own barbara basler standing by to both of you good evening barbara let me start with you you were present at that press conference today what was the reaction when mr towser said that and who was he actually talking about who does he think deserves that place in hell. now there was of course a sort of audible gasp in the press room when this remark about a special place in hell for hardcore bricks and tears came and then furious tweeting started because everybody knew this was sort of like a little smoke grenade that donald had been lobbing across the channel and also we

know that this was not an off the cuff remark because we immediately sort of received a verbal sort of. remarks and it was written there just word by word so this first very carefully thought out this was something he was doing deliberately because he obviously wanted to make quite clear to the other side of the negotiating table tomorrow that these sort of insults flying back and forth of course they can force and we remember we saw andrea let some the leader of the conservatives in allam and sort of talking about european intransigence today and that was the reason why nothing would be moving and it was all the fault and so on it's a force that everybody in brussels was quite fed up with that. we've been hearing today that mr joe's was aiming those words directly. boards john what do you say about that and what about the backlash to that in the u k.

the backlash is coming from precisely those people and i think donald tusk was entirely justified in saying they rushed into this entire process without any clear idea of how they were going to get to a safe landing so it's rather refreshing to hear that having said that the problem is that reason and her government is still really in exactly the same position they haven't got a united position she hasn't got a solution that she's sure she can get through parliament she's been desperately trying to talk to the northern irish today to see whether she feels any movement there and i fear that when she comes to brussels tomorrow she's going to be on a hiding to nothing and there's a problem behind this whole she's been really playing chicken with the idea that we may crash with no deal well the trouble is the people she's trying to frighten with

that actually don't care people like nigel for one player is johnson and the other hardline. they really don't mind if we crash out with no deal and that's a nightmare you know it's a nightmare and it's becoming more likely with every passing day that barbara we know that theresa may she wants to get some sort of concession from the european union preferably tomorrow when she is in brussels why do you think mr taus said what he did today i mean was he just venting or didn't see add some other all teary or motive for tomorrow. he was of course venting in a way because he is basically an angle file i mean to squiz in london numerous times he tried to talk to leading british politicians he talked several times that the reason may last year he was all about let's be friends and that sort of resolve this in an amicable way but it seems that this all has been completely leading to

nothing i mean this was just so much waste of time and after two years of negotiations the e.u. is now confronted with three of them a coming back in the other time was demands that on not realistic that will not be sort of given into at the moment and just say please help me over the hurdle yes but what is really telling her and her political friends and enemies in her own party is the hurdle and the problems here in this is your own fault you made this you created this and it's not up to us to resolve it for you it's a very good point and. the parliament is supposed to vote on this final withdrawal plan on february fourteenth what do you think is going to happen if there is no progress report from theresa may does that increase the chances of seeing new elections or a second referendum a brooch. you know the trouble is everything is possible the nightmare for

two reasons maybe she's gone on and on and on trying to deliver a deal that is except to pull to her right wing hard line breaks as and also to the democratic unionist party from northern ireland and it really doesn't look as if there is any deal that's acceptable to them that is also acceptable to the twenty seven other members of the european union they're saying look yet it crossed party deal where it's soft of form of brecht's that you would have a majority in parliament then and come back to us but that would split the conservative party so they don't want an election because they'd be going into it totally split the labor party says it wants an election but it's also split i do think that the possibility of another referendum is still there but even that doesn't have a majority in parliament at the moment we're really in deadlock which is why

there's growing fear in brussels i think that no deal might be the accidental outcome incredible. quintile in london barber being sold in brussels to both of you thank you very much for your insights tonight. well here's some of the other stories now that are making headlines around the world the european commission has blocked a plan to tie up between the german engineering giant zimmermann's and france is. how the companies were set to merge their real business is so that they could take on bigger foreign rivals but the european union anti-trust office says that would hurt competition and drive up consumer price. a taliban representative has said the u.s. has promised to withdraw half its troops from afghanistan by the end of april he was speaking on the sidelines of a meeting with prominent afghan leaders in moscow it's being seen as another step in a process aimed at resolving afghanistan's a seventeen year rule. us president has given

a wide ranging state of the union address his second calling on americans to unite and politicians to start working together across party lines on foreign policy he announced a new summit with north korean leader kim jong un in three weeks his address was delayed by over a month because of the dispute over his controversial border wall. street. the president of the united states. arriving for his second. a high temple of american politics for a state of the union that's a week behind sched jewel such as the rule close to of donald trump's presidency on the agenda and this sprawling speech economic boom border walls and matters of war and peace if i had not been elected president of the united states we would

right now in my opinion be in a major war with north korea. my relationship with kim jong un is a good one. jeremy and kim and i will meet again on february twenty seventh and twenty eighth in vietnam. the news will surely dominate the headlines but trump soon turned to the issue which almost saw the showdown in congress called his controversial plans to build a wall on the mexico border. in the past most of the people in this room voted for a wall but the proper wall never got built i will get it built legally and their official response the democrats called trump's decision to shut down the government over the wall is a disgrace and happy lunar new year i'm stacy abrams the shutdown was

a stunt engineered by the president of the united states one that defied every tenet of fairness and abandoned not just our people but our values i facing a divided congress for the first time the president called for compromise and cooperation before attacking an f.b.i. investigation into his campaign links to russia amid the divisions there were flashes of unity as donald trump looks out on a pool of democratic female congress women dressed in the white of the suffragette movement. you know like this. the on exactly one century after congress passed the constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote we also have more women serving in congress then that. the

harmony lost but then this deeply polarized colden of politics for how long. when the human rights group amnesty international has accused the united arab emirates of providing western arms to yemeni militias in a report the group says that iranian forces received billions of dollars worth of arms from western states and siphoned them to militias in yemen that have been committing war crimes amnesty also says countries such as australia france germany and the us were involved in the trade it is urging them to stop supplying arms to the conflict. this is an explosive report to talk about that now i'm joined by patrick the kid he's arms control and human rights researcher at amnesty international it's good to have you on the show amnesty is accusing the united arab emirates of diverting arms to militias in yemen armed supplied by western countries

such as germany so are germany's arms sales are the indirectly fueling the fighting in the conflict. well we have been arguing for a long time since the beginning of the conflict that all suppliers to members of the coalition are fueling this conflict which is seeing great suffering across yemen on the specific issue of diversion of weapons we found us some of the agreements the arms from countries like building focus area and serbia have been isolated instances of german weapons found probably coming from saudi arabia and not the stocks but also law states have to consider their complicity in the crimes that are being committed across yemen and you know correct me if i'm wrong here patrick but when a country buys weapons from forth from germany or from the united states i mean

it's prohibited for them to pass those weapons on to third parties without the express permission of the sailing country germany or the united states isn't that correct and doesn't it also is bigger the fact that that that rules not being enforced. that is correct and the inner aussies are not me for seeing what a cold and uses the tickets which and not informing the us of a supplier that they are handing these these weapons on the arms trade is in theory highly regulated and suppliers and incautious must abide by what security regulations and why handing these weapons on the u.a.e. is is really acting in a way that they've acted on many occasions in the past and the u.a.e. has become a conduit for diversion of arms not just into yemen conflict but also into syria

libya and self that are yeah. well can amnesty international arms control and human rights researcher a fact that we appreciate your time tonight very disturbing report there thank you . we're here in germany leading politicians have marked these intent of the nation's first democratic constitution at a ceremony in weimar it was in the eastern city that the national assembly founded every public after imperial germany's calamitous defeat in world war one lawmakers including german chancellor angela merkel attended a church service to commemorate the occasion. germany's fasts democratic constituency and was drawn up in weimar as national theatre. it was one of the most liberal and progressive ever penned at the time. german president congress to stein might have pointed to the lost in importance. in an

outside. india we live in a time when historical achievements including the separation of powers the parliamentary system and the rule of law are being challenged and questioned even here in europe so. after the first free elections in january one thousand nine hundred nineteen the national assembly met environment and created germany's first democratic legal constitution the cycled weimar constitution. it formalized the principles of sovereignty separation of powers and women's suffrage but the constitution also contained faith to fools. the nation's president had considerable power and could even dissolve parliament in an emergency that was a power hitter and nato used to destroy the young democracy and despite its shortcomings today's german president praised the weimar constitutions ideals.

doesn't opens a hard again for praising today's constitution does not mean it's weimar predecessor it was a bad one and it's left of us and gives an engagement on the contrary much of what was created and it lives on today weimar's ideals of freedom and democracy the rule of law and the welfare state have not failed and even if historic was decided to stein my own so i wound of complacency saying that while democracy is not meant to fail it's not guaranteed to survive. and joining me here the big tables are cheap political correspondent melinda cradle of the let's start not with you know the weimar republic ending but let's let's talk about why the constitution was so progressive to begin with reformers who were

involved in drafting that constitution including even people like the famous sociologist max maybe they saw the. abdication of the kaiser as their moment of opportunity and they believe that a progressive constitution would have the ability to catapult germany from being an author or terry and monarchy into being a liberal progressive democracy basically leapfrogging into modernity that's one part of it the other part of it is germany was riven by social unrest blood was flowing in the streets and there was a hope that universal suffrage the vote for everyone the proportional representation allowing small parties to be represented in parliament that that would help heal these divisions and we forget to help progressive the weimar republic was protect particularly in the first half of the night to twenty years but then the democracy failed what lessons are there to be learned well in part it failed because of birth defects in that original constitution just two of them

worth mentioning because they are still relevant today one is that proportional representation it helped a lot of very small splinter parties get elected they had just a few seats in parliament basically very hard to govern with this very fragmented structure in parliament even more important article forty eight it was an emergency powers article it allowed the president to override the legislature when he deemed there to be a national emergency does that sound familiar sounds of article forty eight is getting mentioned a lot these days in connection with president trump's announcement that there's a national emergency on the border there are a big risks in calling an emergency president tended bar did that in the result was . that there was a lot of talk about the the groundwork being laid last night in the state of the union address for a national crisis being called we know the german president emphasized in his speech today that even a very clever constitution could not protect democracy from failure what did he

mean by that that's right he said good constitution won't. override bad times and basically the one nine hundred twenty s. were a very bad time for germany they were paying crippling reparations to the victors of world war what that basically brought the german economy to its needs hyperinflation was the result that helped continue those social divisions that i mentioned earlier no less than three hundred fifty six german government politicians were assassinated over the course of the weimar republic by nationalist terrorists there were those splinter parties that i mentioned demonizing each other hateful rhetoric anti-semitism rampant all of that can teach us today economic instability and inequality matter so demonization and vulgar ugly hate speech and political discourse all of that helped to bring this very good

constitution this very hopeful democracy basically down to its knees many people would say that the success that the world saw in the new world order after world war two was because the lessons of even the weimar republic had been learned. all right linda great as always we appreciate your insights our rights now the event that movie fans here in berlin look forward to every year tomorrow he sees the start of the berlin film festival the bell and this year seventy films are competing for the festival's top prize the golden bear the jury will be chaired by the french movie star juliette binoche at a festival otherwise lacking in star power that won't stop the fans though they're already lining up for the hottest ticket. the fans are what make the bally nala such a unique event it attracts the largest audience of any film festival in the wild and anyone can get tickets here as long as they get in line the enough. i

read every single synopsis of every movie and made my choices but. i wasn't prepared for how difficult it is to get tickets than i. have to fit the movies the timing but you have to fit quick because a lot of ticket offices and they fly very quick nearly four hundred movies will be presented and one thing is for sure it's going to be a women's. francesco winner juliet in nashville beat the jury british actress charla dram being received the honorary bear for her lifetime achievement and seven off the seventeen movies running for a golden bear were directed by women a belly now a record and a milestone for an a list festival. and it's a woman who is kicking off the movie marathon danish director alone as shaft race will open the festival with her film the kindness of strangers in it she tells the

story of a group of people who meet during the cold new york winter. and then many once and for years now. this celebrates women festival director says it's a reaction to the gender equality debate. that. course this is partially a result of the ongoing debate. our views have expanded and we're learning to question things but i have to stress that we didn't include any films where we weren't convinced of the quality from the. german films are also well represented at the. one powerful entry is by prize winning director fatty aqim in the golden glove he profiles a notorious serial killer. and

this man will be lending the festival some. hollywood glamour christian bale playing former u.s. vice president dick cheney the biographical film presents him as a power hungry politician for president because this is the decision proof. they're standing. at the bell as main venue the red carpet is being rolled out this year it's environmentally friendly it's made of recycled fishing net green and glamorous. and does not smell like fish are football news now johnny infantino is almost guaranteed to serve as president with no one else standing in. been in charge of the world football's governing body since two thousand and sixteen taking over in the wake of the sport's worst ever corruption scandal the forty eight year old will be unopposed after his only potential challenger former

player. failed to secure the backing of at least five of the two hundred eleven federations. all right that's all for me for now coming up next conflict zone don't forget you can get all the news at. the top of the hour with more world news followed by the day to see a bit. entering

the conflict zone confronting the powerful. the situation in venezuela could hardly be more complex marcus this week here in brussels is going to be a someone. who is venezuela's ambassador to the european union with the record of a cooling human rights abuses mr mugg desire to stay in office.

conflicts of next on t.w. . for. crimes against humanity. civilians see come with music. come to their recordings which is travel around the globe just social media. but what is for the gambling addiction what is fact digital investigators comb through the flood of images they combine sources to try to reconstruct what happened and to substantiate claims of christ thanks to this video recording of the soldier who shall be young man is on trial now for forensics between bits and bytes

. that they believe such a thing get. a big chance because justice is about the truth. truth detectives starts feb fifteenth on t w. such a. situation in venezuela could hardly be more complex the united states along with some two dozen countries is backing the new interim leader one way down. russia and china support the incumbent nicolas maduro how's it going to play out my guess this week here in brussels is cloudier salerno caldera who is venezuela's ambassador to the european union with a record of appalling human rights abuses does mr montoro deserve to stay in office .