this is the news live from berlin the u.s. senate gives the go ahead for the 2nd impeachment trial is lawyers said it's unconstitutional to impeach a former president democrats insist he's guilty of inciting the storming of congress last month. also coming up international condemnation grows as myanmar's military tightens its grip on power and braids the party headquarters of detained leader aung sun suu cheek but protesters take to the streets for a 5th straight day.

i'm going to as well come to the program in the united states senators half voted to proceed with a full impeachment trial against donald trump the senate was divided largely along party lines and backing the democrats' argument that the trial is indeed constitutional the former president stands accused of inciting the storming of the capitol that left 5 people dead early last month. the newest. $56.00 the 44 hours a clear decision in a divided chamber donald trump will face a 2nd impeachment trial. perceived with a trial the senate vote affirmed that the trial was constitutional we will stop this deal to make their case the democratic prosecutors presented

a video as evidence that trump fired up his supporters ahead of the january 6th storming of the capitol. and you can. and through it breaks out there everything does that when you catch somebody in a fraud you're allowed to go by very different rules you ask with a high crime a misdemeanor is under our constitution. that's a high crime and misdemeanor. ahead of the vote republicans had argued that trump could not be impeached once out of office this was dismissed by the prosecution. their argument is that if you commit an impeachable offense in your last few weeks in office you do it with constitutional impunity you get away with it. but it. trumps lawyers also resorted to video arguing that the trial was politically motivated and divisive. based on the impeachment would you vote yes for

i would vote yes i would i would. with this trial you will open up new and bigger wounds across the nation for a great many americans see this process for exactly what it is a chance by a group of partisan politicians seeking to eliminate donald trump from the american political scene in a congress is still reeling from last month's events it is partisan politics that makes it very unlikely the prosecution will get the 2 thirds majority required in the senate to convict trump. of a more this speaks of the w.'s u.s. analysts william. william how did this 1st session of trump's 2nd the. morning i think we got a very solid preview for what the trial is going to look like as we just heard in the report this was not the trial itself this was just deciding if the trial could be constitutional the senate could even hear this. since nothing moves very quickly

in the senate 70 gets very debated about democrats used a very both legal and emotional arguments for pressing their case that donald trump is culpable in the violence of january 6th and the trump attorneys as we also heard were saying that unconstitutional that donald trump has free speech protections and that it's ridiculous to try to impeach and convict a president who's no longer sitting in office so that was kind of what we saw going in yesterday and then today we will be looking at into the trial itself ok so the democrats simple majority secure that the votes to proceed with a trial but is that enough to actually convict him as well. well because of course he's $67.00 votes to convict which means the democrats have to hold together all 50 of them plus 17 republican senators joining them and we saw just 6

republican senators voting that this case was at all constitutional to even have a trial to begin with now of course that's not not that not necessarily a one to one translation but it gives us quite a good of you of how most republicans feel of the vote yesterday on the constitutionality of the trial was quite quite on the same lines as the vote a few weeks ago about whether the senate even wanted to accept the impeachment the house's impeachment of donald trump their 5 senators joined democrats yesterday $6.00 to $6.00 surprised senator said that the trump defense was weak was meandering and it was it was started startling startling week for him to go along and actually took his position as an impartial juror and change his vote that was just 11 senator one republican senator so the want to tell his lawyers said the vis trial will this country apart does he have

a point. this is an argument that republicans have been using for years and i think it's getting a bit tiring to hear them use divisive an incendiary rhetoric not just beginning with donald trump but whether it's about really hot button issues like abortion like guns in the post 911 years when it came to dealing with terrorist threats calling other opponents mainly democrats as un-american or even siding with terrorists weak on defense and of course all the things that we saw in the trump years and then going from that rhetoric to then saying oh but if we do anything about it that will really divide the nation the nation already is divided you have large numbers of republicans who don't believe that this election was real despite all the evidence showing that it was including from republican run states like georgia that did the job of counting those votes so whether it's a vides a nation or not i don't think is the point here democrats want to hold the

president accountable for his actions in january when they will have to thank you. that's going to round up now of some of the latest development in the coronavirus pandemic germany's chancellor angela merkel says she wants to extend the country's conquer one of ours lockdown until march government is meeting later today with the leaders of germany's 16 states to to new covert 9000 variants have been identified in england one of them deemed a variant of concern u.k. government advisers say both have similarities to the south african and brazilian variants and south korea says it will green light the astra zeneca vaccine for all people including those over the age of $65.00 it's the 1st vaccine to be granted approval in the country. and here are some more of the stories making headlines around the world today italy's matteo salvini says his right wing party is prepared to back a new government led by mario draghi support from salvini is crucial to drag his

bid to become prime minister after the conti's step down at the end of january. hungary's a media regulator has denied an appeal by the country's most prominent independent radio station to keep its border crossing license the station clock radio claims the decision was politically motivated hungary's state media regulator has political ties to prime minister viktor orban. turkey has unveiled an ambitious 10 year plan for its new space agency to doing missions to the moon satellite systems and launching turkish astronauts into space president rest of. the program would aim to land a spacecraft on the moon by 2023. the pilot of the helicopter crash that killed basketball star kobe bryant's may have broken safety rules u.s. investigators say he may have flown flown into cloud cover without performing

required procedures and his daughter and 7 others were killed when the helicopter went down in january last year in los angeles. soldiers and mob have raided the party headquarters of the detained leader aung san suu kyi as mere mass military tightens its grip on power the headquarters of the national league for democracy political parties were broken into and ransacked by security forces on tuesday but as the military steps up its campaign of intimidation against the ousted civilian leadership protesters took to the streets for a 5th consecutive day of nationwide demonstrations that's despite face of water cannons tear gas and rubber bullets in recent days and nights curfew is also in place a united nations condemns the use of force against the protesters it's calling for the release of aung san suu kyi and other elected leaders of the european parliament is debating sanctions on myanmar but you foreign policy chief joseph burrell is urging

a cautious approach we should avoid rushing into measures that group. affected most vulnerable part of the population this often happens when you dig measures at the end of the poorest among the poorest who pay you can ship which had engaged with asian indian the us. and discuss this you do a should gesture day with the chinese for a mission. we all agree on the need to create responses to avoid telling africa completely that can last quite a long time because of growth speaking then are for more let's bring in a man tun she's a freelance journalist based in young on how likely is it the military will listen to this international pressure. well i think it depends on how how consistently the pressure is applied and whether or not

there are they have supporters in countries who in the past have supported them so in the case of the range of crisis we saw that especially in the un security council as well as in the international efforts to hold them accountable for the atrocities that were committed against the right. they have allies with china and russia as well as a couple of other countries and those if any efforts by the international community are not consistently applied then there is always ways for them to continue to make money and continue to avoid accountability for the military have no raided the main opposition party headquarters and the protests on the other hand are continuing although any signs of a peaceful solution. i mean i think the civil disobedience movement is a really good place to look in terms of nonviolence nonviolent resistance and

a way in which you know even without street protests necessarily people would be able to resist. the governance of the terry regime. but at the same time you know the military's response to protests there is clearly escalating and in the intro you said earlier that there were brother bullets used yesterday there was a protest a protester who was shot and was taken to the hospital and her doctor confirmed that it was alive well it went to her head. does the military you think still have the backing of although authorities at the concert or block the police or local governments. so we have seen a number of people essentially defecting from the leadership of the military and so there were quite a few videos of police officers who were there for the police line in order to join the army yes there were videos of police officers who essentially broke the police line in order to join protesters and there's also reports of police officers simply

quitting the force and yesterday as well the mare madelaine resigned from its post . you've been covering this situation in myanmar for many many years but how do these protests compare to the previous. so i started covering myanmar in 2018 and so largely the protests here have been there's been sort of rallies in support about that city and against international condemnation regarding the printer issue as well as labor movement as well as free speech and internet access or pro internet access movements and nothing has ever compared anything like this the share amount of people who are involved in the level of solidarity that we're seeing between different ethnic and religious groups as well as the fact that it's just the entire country right as opposed to very small segments or very

specific locations. thank you very much i mean for young. thank you for having me. forgo some show business news mary wilson the co-founder of us pop group the supreme court has died she was 76 wilson seen here in the middle started the group in the city of detroit at the age of 15 the supreme sweat on top of 12 number one singles in the u.s. and wilson was inducted into the rock n roll hall of fame supremes it's included you can't hurry love and stop in the name of.

mary was at the edges of the suits and that's it from me on the news stream don't go away coming up next is chris of course but he has all the business news so you have all the latest news on our web site a state of you got. out of date for you at the top of the hour thank you. it's about billions. it's about power. it's about the foundation of the new world order the new silk road. china wants to expand its influence with this trading up.