this is the the view news live from berlin the u.s. house of representatives impeach is president donald trump. one is adopting. the historic vote sets up a trial now in the senate that will decide whether the president remains in office also on the show australia's bushfire prizes problems a state of emergency in new south wales a record heat wave is fanning unprecedented fire situations expected to get worse with even more intense heat and extreme winds on the way. and it's 3 years since

an islamist attack killed 12 people out of berlin christmas market opposition politicians in germany say authorities still have plenty of questions to ask. i'm brian thomas great to have you with us the u.s. house of representatives has voted to impeach u.s. president donald trump on 2 charges stemming from his alleged attempt to pressure ukraine into investigating his political rival joe biden now both votes fell along party lines almost all democrats voted for the charges republicans voting unanimously against them but this doesn't mean that president trump will be removed from office the process now heads on to the senate where he's likely to be acquitted by its republican majority. after hours of debating the

1st article of impeachment for abuse of power past the hives. on this vote the yeas are 230 the nasal 197 present is one. article one is adopted and just minutes later the 2nd article for obstruction of congress went as planned for the democrats on this vote the yeas are 229 the nays are 198 present is one article 2 is adopted. hundreds of kilometers away you have a rally in michigan president trump reacted to his impeachment. with today's illegal unconstitutional and partisan impeachment. would do nothing democrats and they are doing nothing all they want to do is focus

on this what they could be doing are declaring their deep hatred and this thing for the american voter. this lawless partisan speech is a political suicide march for the democratic party have you seen my polls of the last for which. back in washington democratic had speaker nancy pelosi accuse the republicans of being purely partisan she threatened to delay the impeachment trial until she could be sure he would be handled fairly in the senate. we have legislation approved by the rules committee that will enable us to decide how we will fund over articles of impeachment we cannot name managers until we see what the process is on the senate side and i would hope that that will be soon so far we haven't fulfilled what will they are to us so hopefully it will be for when we see what all this will. probably with voting concluded in the house of representatives

and donald trump becoming only the 3rd u.s. president to be impeached americans now face the next stage in the process the senate trial that's due to begin in january but democrats face an uphill battle considering the senate is republican controlled and they need a 2. thirds majority to remove president trump from office. for the capitol is about to begin a brief period of calm over the holiday season as members of the congress and senate spent time in their homes across this starkly divided country. or joined now by boris foreman political science professor at bard college here in berlin nice to see you again boris good morning to you the impeachment now moves to the senate when is it going to get there both sides say they want to speedy trial and to walk us through what happens how the process holder sort of sort of a transition mode with some from the hosts becoming managers of the case and moving it on and presenting the case to the to the senate and then there's some some.

equivocal statements have been heard about how it will then move on the question is whether the republicans will low any witnesses the democrats are insisting on additional witnesses and so there might be a bit more of a drawn out process but i think what both parties want to avoid is a clash with the with the presidential elections in november ok so how long could the process take you know how much time we're looking at in the senate well i think the there's hope that it could be done early in the year in the spring so that during the primaries it will be over and done with but there's also an incentive a small incentive for the republicans but longer because what the impeachment trial does is to bog down the senators and if warren and sanders are still in the race there will not be able to be on the compatriot ok no chance of the democrat spread in the senate will pass republicans of course have the majority there well it's as everybody says it's highly unlikely 20 republicans would have to move to the other

side and given what we've seen not just yesterday but over the last course of the years there is a deeply polarized political system it's very unlikely for that to happen. so it remains to. you see it but as long as public opinion doesn't shift on this and it hasn't. this is probably not going to happen ok then why are democrats pursuing this course the president's described described as self destructive why are they going down this road well i think the argument here is that the founders of the constitution befalling fathers of the u.s. have decided that there are certain mechanisms in place or have to be in place if democracy is going to be protected and if there is someone who puts their private interests above the general interest then these mechanisms should should be played out and this is the democrats' argument and so they're saying we're doing this

because it needs to be done we've been reluctant nancy pelosi has insisted on this multiple times and they view as well they've been reluctant to get this process started but they have to follow through ok and nancy pelosi back in march said there's no grounds for impeachment she didn't want to go down this road what change for the democrats well i think having looked at the evidence after that was what 4 of them made a difference the other thing is obviously the polarization not just between the parties but within the parties there's been a strong constituency within the democratic party that's been arguing for impeachment so she had pressure from both sides basically ok how do you see the impeachment process playing out in the elections trump one the former democratic strongholds in michigan and pennsylvania how is this process going to go down in those key swing states in the next election it seems like the position are very polarized again it doesn't seem like this will change. i don't

know exactly what's going to happen in those swing states. there is a reason why trump was elected and why they went from democratic strongholds to republican backers i don't know however either whether what. has been doing in office the kinds of reforms that he's been trying to get started to really have affected those voters in a popular or in the popular and helpful way so it remains to be seen ok boris foreman thanks so much for coming in give us insights this morning from bard college here in berlin thanks very much. let's get you a brief down some of the other stories making news at this hour a court in the philippines was found guilty in the members of a family clan accused of murdering its political opponents and journalists 57 people died in a massacre in 2009 worst incident of political violence in the philippines today.

thousands of people gathered across poland to demonstrate against the proposed law allowing the government to fire judges the protesters fear the legislation would undermine the independence of the judiciary they also fear it could lead to poland's exit from the european union. as attorney general has issued an arrest warrant for former president if he's wanted for trial on charges of sedition and terrorism. he fled bolivia last month amidst unmasked with protesters outside a football match between barcelona and real madrid the protesters outside that stadium in barcelona want to draw attention to the catalonian separatist movement during the goalless match which was watched by 650000000 people worldwide. while australia's most populous state of new south wales has declared a state of emergency over its bushfire crisis towards a warning the threat from fires will be increasing over the coming days now strong

winds and extreme heat are making the situation even worse with temperatures climbing to a record breaking 41.9 degrees celsius yesterday. a wall of flames consuming all before it the firemen trying to slow its advance of fighting a losing battle. wildfires have been raging in australia for months now it's going to be more than $3000000.00 hectares of land and destroying over $700.00 homes that smoke has engulfed sydney blurring it psychotic skyline but with record temperatures fanning the flames the state of new south wales is preparing for things to get worse given the severity of extreme weather conditions today and also saturday and for the next few days on advice of commissioner fitzsimmons new south wales will be in a state of emergency from today for the next 7 days scientists blame global warming

for the severity of this year's fires parched from the searing heat new south wales is a tinderbox already alight. we've got just under 104 hours going across new south wales and half of them are not can timed to die is going to be a very bad i dined here in new south wales the forecast is that sort of i will be even worse so we're talking about some very serious and dangerous conditions over the coming days. with the heat bearing down many australians took to the waves to cool off. even as they relax on the beach the flames are creeping closer. they would be even more dangerous conditions on the way let's go straight to sydney now and journalist roger maynard good morning roger a serious situation where you are or soyuz. well the temps you know it's 42 degrees centigrade on average across australia today which is pretty awful anyone's

standards and as your correspondent mentioned just now we've got a state of emergency declared in new south wales which will be in full school at least the next 7 days let state of emergency will be learnt is greater powers the fire authority is the place to forcibly remove people from the hones it if necessary but the root of the really big worry here at the moment is the predictability of the weather no one really knows where the knicks fire that's going to break out or whether the burning embers from those fires will be sent by winds to other areas and create log fire today we've had some really horrific pictures of the fires burning out of control both north and south of sydney 3 people 3 firefighters have been up and only burned in those blazes and there are reports that as many as 20 homes have been destroyed. roger with all this unpredictability how are people coping as specially with the health threat from

smoke we've been seeing the images in sydney. we'll have to take a look at the world particularly because the slogan which is blanked is sydney and most of new south wales for the past fortnight or so today was really bad totally worse than earlier in the week you could see you know a few 100 metres if you were lucky and you know that visibility in the sort of conditions creating the health hazards here to many people the smoke and the heat is arguably more serious than the actual bush far as you get more people dying in australia from heat waves than bush files or floods put together and doctors in devising everyone to stay indoors it's possible or they have to go outside to replace mosques you know roger the heat wave this is another climate change alarm bell for us for our house the government responding to calls for to change course and it's current climate policy. but the certainly

a big debate going all over here about the cool is that which will our prices many people blame the government not taking action to addressing climate change and making moves to reduce the country's reliance on fossil fuels but others argue that there's no direct link in climate change and the drought like conditions and dry weather of course is nothing new to australia not something going on here for the past what many many thousands of years even so the right of center government here is being savaged for its lack of action a point highlighted today by the fact that the prime minister scott morrison has gone off on overseas holiday repeatedly to hawaii you know to and ignore the situation while australia burns and clearly hasn't gone down too well with the electorate roger manner of the latest for us from sydney roger thanks very much for that. this is due to the news live from berlin still to come on our show in german football reigning champions by in munich move up to 3rd

in the table after a win at freiburg. but 1st it's been 3 years now since an islamist terrorists rammed a truck into a busy christmas market in central berlin killing 12 people injuring dozens many of whom continued to suffer gravely from their injuries the attacker was known to german authorities at the time as a potential terrorist a parliamentary committee has been investigating this case opposition members of that committee have now presented their interim report and some of its findings are . 3 years own condos and flows still commemorate the victims of the attack. a parliamentary committee is still trying to discover why authorities weren't able to prevent it opposition politicians make serious charges the most and i felt that we simply have to point out that jam and security agency

for completely misjudged the threat there assessment of anything i'm really was incorrect to a great extent they fail to take it. even sometimes down spin room. soon after the attack authorities described hammering as a lone wolf a small time drug dealer who picked up radical ideas on his own some members of the investigative committee say that theory no longer holds water and his family had close ties to germany's islamist scene and the authorities were well aware of his activities. he was one of the most dangerous potential terrorists of 2016 so no one seriously disputes that he was a hot potato that the passing back and forth no one really wanted the case. you couldn't get should 1st we've already determined the intercepted telephone conversations were not on allies in a timely and competent manner that co that observation was prematurely broken off and especially that the eventual perpetrators cell phone was not thoroughly set the

evidence was it would. 3 years later the committee investigating the case sees work is far from finished. ok and this is a very troubling case in many ways we're joined now from work by political correspondent hans front morning hans we know a lot more today than 3 years ago about honesty and the network he was apparently connected to can you can fill us in on the well he certainly was and the lone wolf that authorities talked about initially he was very well connected in the islamist scene both here in germany here in berlin where he attended mosques that were connected to that scene also in the western part of germany he was part of the islamist scene when on the that he had connections to islamists in france and belgium and also in libya and tunisia back in his home country so he was very well connected internationally ok now the german security services have been coming under a lot of pressure somebody are claiming there's been

a cover up of key details in this case what's that all about well it certainly happened is that there was a lot of back and forth between the federal authorities on the one hand and the authorities in the various federal states where on his armory was active away a way where he was being observed at times we know that there were a number of informants close to him that were. run by various agencies of the german security system but these information the information that came from these people was not really coordinated between these various agencies and in the end here in berlin way it was finally people decided in the authorities that he was not in fact dangerous that he was more kind of small time drug dealer and they stopped observing him just weeks before the actual attack if you have to say the deed of you we had an interview here right after it happened we had an israeli security expert saying it was impossible that this was a lone wolf attack at the time what can we expect to come out of of the

parliamentary investigation it's going to go on for. well it's going to go on for another year or at least it has been going on for 2 years already and these kind of processes are very very slow the opposition members of the parliamentary inquiry are saying that the authorities are very reluctant to reveal all sorts of details amongst others the details that come from these informants that we were talking about so there has been quite a bit of kind of back and forth between the interior ministry and the parliament trying to gain further explanation further information for the documents connected to this case there's also some idea that the german foreign intelligence service was on to this case as well there to the information coming out of that is very very slow so it's a very very tedious process as likely to go on for a year or more are we going to see any changes in the security services and what they do to protect us the public well the german authorities have said that they

have already acted in fact there is a coordination center against terrorists and now active in germany all these various agencies on meeting regularly to try and coordinate their information and they say that they have prevented at least 7 further attacks in recent months hans brown thanks very much for bringing us up to date on the story. all staying in germany the country has been marking the 30th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall this year which led of course to german reunification now one of the big questions facing german leaders back then was what to do with the vast quantity of files kept by the east german secret police the feared stasi now in the end they were made available to the public but 3 decades on they remain a source of pain controversy and insights. 30 years ago east german stormed the headquarters of the stasi. they wanted to prevent the communist dictatorship secret

police from completely destroying its archives here are in supreme war the question our way and the place where the secret police planned the oppression of the people being there and helping to preserve the files it's an experience i'll always remember as. my daughter i don't know how to be out there today is the federal commissioner for the stanzi archives is agency holds enough files to stretch for 111 kilometers as a journalist and civil rights activist he himself was put under surveillance spied on and filmed by the stasi until 989 just like millions of others the spying reached all the way to the top ranks and to the west one of the stasis main targets was long term chancellor helmut kohl after the fall of the g.d.r. the german government did not initially want to make the archives available to the public in an exclusive interview with g w the former chancellor's widow mica closely she explains why this instance lack

there of questionable truth what's worse the stasi also added fake information to the files so they were created in order to spy on people to subdue people and to secure the continuance of the regime by leaving suspicion but activists from the former east germany persevered soon anyone could apply to look at his or her own files people were often astonished by what this. stanzi had known about them how much fun a long legal battle to prevent stasi files about himself from being released to academic researchers and journalists in the end a compromise was reached. top 40 stuff which are mentioned i thought it was the stars he violated our human rights by spying on citizens and helmut kohl. because he collected that information and these files of course they should be protected these are not produced because for. 30 years on more than 2000000 people have seen their files the identities of former stasi spies have been revealed. people who

were wrongfully imprisoned were forced into working for the stanzi were rehabilitated. but how to treat the files in the future is still controversial. they're not a legitimate source this was always my husband's concern he'd say the more distant people are from the g.d.r. over time the less they will understand that the stasi files are not of a constitutional state. but who sees the archives as a key historic document this is these arkansas it's important to expand these files by talking to witnesses of the time but also with other information. in a sense history is always made up of many different elements like a mosaic shouldn't be a static image of history these archives should contribute to a discourse on history. that could take place here at the former headquarters of east germany secret police and berlin a campus for democracy as in the planning it should be finished by 2021 and it's

hoped it will send a clear message that towards dictatorship can be overcome that's a reason for hope and that's the message that can be learned from history also for future generations about to become aware that freedom and autonomy are not a given but instead they must be cherished and protected to shots and to shoot. that report as part of the did a documentary. wrote act in dresden gave you that innocent tiredly online a d w dot com slash doc file. we have some sports now and by a minute have dominated german football for the last 7 seasons and this time around they found the going harder though after battering braman 61 over the weekend they travel to freiburg yesterday and grabbed a late win. a high 5 for a high class performance at the weekend. and scored by ns goal getter in chief. and the brazilian wasted no time trying to add to his weekend hat trick thankfully

for hosts freiburg man well back just in the nick of time. having dodged a bullet with they were soon in the firing line again shop she to 11 he rarely misses perfectly placed a proud in the cross from alfonso davis. but instead of pushing their advantage by and found themselves pressed back it wasn't for the heroics of goalkeeper manwell neuer freiburg could have been levelled at the break. he might have told you that was a warning shot for what was to come just before the hour mark when chen's a grief smashed an equaliser. he'd already fluffed one volley in the 1st half this one wasn't she pretty either but it did the trick freiburg in the ascendancy and in spitting distance of a famous victory but in a team full of stars it was a relative unknown who stole the plaudits yahshua xix

a on as a sub to continue putting by him back in front in stoppage time the young dutchman had only been on the pitch for 2 minutes some way to make an impact says gnabry added flattery to the scoreline with bae and. it would be the last kick of the gang . violence leading men ably propped up by the supporting cast. as did your minor now of our top stories this hour the u.s. house of representatives has voted to impeach president donald trump majority democrats winning that vote would split along party lines the articles of impeachment sent to the senate where a republican majority is expected to keep the president from office. in austria. well your new south wales has declared a state of emergency over the bushfire crisis authorities are warning that a record breaking heat wave coupled with strong winds will increase the threat over the next few days. that's all we have time for i'm brian thomas with the entire

news team thanks so much for being on. the cut. in.

half. lean and internment camp. we. managed to escape from china. in turkey she meets another week or so who also record in the home or if it conditions in the camps. wants to tell her story so the whole world can know the plight of her people. next. on d.w. . conflict to sebastian. junger's recent celebrations for his 70th anniversary was quite a public relations triumph it was supposed to be my guest this week here in london

is a big tent gal how does he justify china's consolmagno of human rights abuses of the continuing pressure on hong kong conflicts of. 60 minutes w. . hong kong. a historical trimming georgian military business embellisher. in iran the people of the islamic revolution i asked. opens up making its initial flirtation capitalism strikes and states of emergency sinks into chaos. chunking the 2nd toughest challenge the people threaten

steel dorner. 1979. that created today's starts december 23rd w. o a very warm welcome indeed to focus on europe with me into craven and we begin in belarus well 20 years ago death squads targeted opposition politicians now exclusive dortch of all the research shows how those politicians disappeared without trace off to being killed in cold blood and there seems to be little doubt that the older care.