this is the deadly news line from the case for the defense in donald trump's trial is lawyer tell senators the former u.s. president is the victim of a witch up trumps team denies he inside the capitol hill riot and calls the trial and that vengeance also coming up the united nations human rights council calls for the release of the ousted of me and my laid out one some some cheap protesters against the military join to accuse the old thorazine so of using excessive force we'll hear from the un's top diplomat on me and. also coming up from

a critical acclaim developing in court again already jailed now he's charged with slandering a war veteran tensions between russia and the european union of the no boundaries fight and rising. and form of mario draghi takes over as italy's new prime minister now the economist credited with saving the euro must revive the nation ravaged by the pandemic and the crippling recession. imagine how 2 of us on p.b.s. in the united states and around the world welcome will stop in the usa where president trump's defense lawyers are opening their impeachment defense by denying that trump played any part in inciting the capitol hill riots decrying the case as political vengeance and calling it a witch hunt their position is clear trump holds no responsibility for violence of the generous 6 riots they say that only those who actually stormed the capitol

black. the article of impeachment now before the senate is an unjust and blatantly unconstitutional act of political vengeance this appalling abuse of the constitution only further divides our nation when we should be trying to come together around shared priority we're joined now by mary ziegler law professor at the florida state university welcome today it's time for trump's team to mount their defense what will be their strategy it's been a kind of mixed message his lawyers are asserting that the entire proceeding is unconstitutional because in their view you can't impeach a private citizen a former elected official they're arguing essentially the kind of i know you are but what are my defense traits saying essentially that democrats if you use words

like to and it's unreasonable to blame tromped for incitement they're arguing that there wasn't you know imminence basically that he wasn't safe telling people to go harsh on the capital right now and they're trying to persuade democrats as the horses are just or in american politics and essentially that trump was the president on order from what we've seen so far and it looks in large part of it they're also kind of rehashing a lot of president traps for talking points if between the words in the video and the nx the numbers are still on trump's side democrats need 17 republican senators to join them in order to convict just how likely is that it's very likely we are ready have a sense that all 6 of the republicans are on record as saying that the entire impeachment is unconstitutional and we have no recent think that they'll get heart from that so now so it's quite unlikely that there will be a conviction. given that the fact that trample almost certainly not be in pay just

what did democrats stand to win from this process when we should be flashing when democrats started the process weren't sure that it would be impossible to any convictions it was a little bit of all of the dice if you will i think now the. constitutionality of the proceedings to stop and democrats are really trying or or and or public opinion and trying to define a former president trumps legacy 'd american public as one that led to insurrection while it's. just some degree american public is watching even if she'd . marry siglo professor at florida state university thanks so much. thanks for having me ok here's some more of the stories making headlines around the world now dozens of 2 new zealand's have blocked roads in the poor southern region of tata when in protest of what they see as broken government promises last

november the government pledged to create hundreds of jobs and fund and a fund to support economic projects a protest aside those have not materialized. ukrainian president followed misadventure he has visited the front lawn of the conflict in eastern ukraine off the 2 ukrainian soldiers were killed in clashes with russian backed separatists so once he said attacks had increased recently and accused the separatists of wanting to disrupt a ceasefire agreed last july. china's space agency has released the 1st footage showing its tionne when one probe entering the orbit of mas after a 6 month journey the cross slowed enough to be captured by miles as gravity it's the 2nd spacecraft to reach the red planet this month. well the un's top human rights body is calling for the release of ousted me and my late one some suchi and i special session the council the military late is to restore civilian rule switchy

was detained by the military that seized power 12 days ago blaming the civilian government of failing to properly investigate allegations of fraud in the november elections the election commission has denied such claims. let's talk more about this now with tom andrews the un special rapporteur on man man who took part in this meeting tom welcome the resolution was adopted unanimously russia and china meanwhile staunchest supporters and act is also agreed how is that possible. that's a very good question as you know china has just traditionally been the protector of me and more from the united nations particularly the security council they provide them with weapons and trade and and so it was i think a reflection of the very strong view of the world looking at this outrageous act by the tatmadaw the military of overthrowing a developing democracy

a fragile democracy after an election on november the 8th on the very day that the new government was was forming so it was it was outrageous and it was inexcusable and i think the fact that they did this under these circumstances and then the aftermath of this with the massive protests and the very heavy handed ness of the of the military combine to make it i think very difficult for anyone including china or russia to vote against the resolution can you get the message through to myanmar as military leaders and what do you think that will do and say in response . well they're saying that they had no choice that they had to do this there were millions of voter voting irregularities and so for the good of the country they just had to overthrow the government. regardless of what kind of irregularities

light had existed you don't address problems you have an election by destroying a democracy it's just completely outrageous so we have found in the past that mean more generals will often say they're impervious to international pressure so don't even try but when pressure has been tried but typically targeted economic pressure sanctions it has had an effect and the progress that we've seen made in the democracy of me and more is precisely linked to the sanctions that have been established in the past so i think if the international community can respond strongly clearly forcefully and begin to build clear sanctions economic sanctions an arms embargo diplomatic pressure it could have an effect but it's critical that it does because the heavy handed tactics of the military on the ground it is showing an increase and of course we know what this military is

capable of so so it we have a lot of work to do you draw the line straight line the sanctions that the station you cold photog and sanctions to back the mass protests how hopeful are you that we will see things come into play. i'm hopeful i mean the united states has started this. there's active discussions going on with the european union with the u.k. canada australia many other countries so i think that if we are able to coordinate these these sanctions make them work together the collective bite of those sanctions i think could could have an impact so i'm i'm hopeful i'm certainly more hopeful of that than i am of the tatmadaw and what they might be doing and what might take what they could do to people who are on the streets they have in the past massacred democracy activists they've they've killed monks in saffron robes protesting we all know what they did

a few years ago the mass atrocity crimes they committed against the right wing ethnic minority so we've got to push this forward this this economic sanction plan diplomatic pressure and and try as hard as we can to make it work mantras un special rapporteur on many thanks so much thank you. well germany has become the lead his country to revoke broadcasting permission for c g t in china's multi-lingual cable news channel the german state media authority said the move was triggered by an earlier decision by the united kingdom's office of communications to revoke the chinese stations permit c g t in had been broadcasting in germany under a license sharing agreement with the u.k. other european countries could also now remove c g t n from cable and satellite services. well in response to that u.k. decision china has banned the b.b.c.

world news in its territory it's the latest example of how media networks are affected by geo political tensions formal for more on this i'm joined by they don't leave reporter joel delroy joel how do we get here well in the past 2 weeks at least 5 international news channels have been banned in different parts of the world let's start with c g t now the u.k. regulator off of it it found that the company listed as the owner or c g t it was not actually in direct control of its programming which is required under the u.k. law rather it's said that the chinese communist party was in charge of the station and it also investigated complaints about fairness and accuracy in some of c.t.'s reporting on the hong kong protests well china's media regulator retaliated by blocking the b.b.c. in its territory it said that the b.b.c. had infringed the principles of truthfulness and impartiality in journalism they were particularly angry about some of the b.b.c.'s coverage of persecution against the weak of minority which is something by the way the d.w.

has also covered now the b.b.c. was already heavily restricted in china it was basically only available in some hotels and also on hong kong public radio but it's been pulled off there in hong kong too and we've also witnessed now moves against russian language news outlets here in europe well in ukraine you have the ukraine pull the plug on 3 russian television networks the. president there were a lot of means lenski said that there was spreading russian propaganda and what instruments of war now this true heavy criticism from the ukrainian union of journalists which said it was blocking access to information and was a an attack on freedom of expression and also the baltics that latvia has blocked several russian language t.v. stations saying that they violated its broadcast rules and so to find a line here they shut down stamping out propaganda or they blocking free speech well to find out i spoke to the international press institute the i.p.i. now they monitor press freedom around the world and they say that a media shutdown is a very serious decision and should only be made to

a rules based transparent process in the case of the u.k. the i.p.i. says that it does believe that a transparent process was followed but china's retaliation it said was i didn't follow any rules in the case of the ukraine they say that there are some concerns there that not enough evidence was presented in the case against those russian t.v. stations now i asked the deputy director scott griffin why should we be concerned about these kind of media shutdowns. in general you lose a voice and media pluralism and so it is a very severe measure anything that you shut. down or broadcast your you are losing a source of information if you need it over that it mentions credible or that you do so every year larger decisions like this that are media outlets you know some. research that is for governments that has a trickle down effect not just on their respective. 'd carried

a label but i think in general it starts to generate this perspective people's minds are all choice you know how some sort of ideology 'd they are pushing they're presenting some sort of force and there's a problem. and there's something. really everywhere at the moment and we feel that it's 1st driving a lot of the attacks in the streets against journalists by protesters and demonstrators everywhere so this is a. or should also mention the d.w. is actually banned in some countries china and iran and that applies to our t.v. news coverage that you're watching right now but also our digital news however there is a work around if you're using the d.w. news out there's a button that says proxy and if you click that button the information will be routed through a mirror server which goes to show that although governments may try and stop news from spreading technology usually finds

a work around with all the answers did i believe reporter jill dougherty thank you so much crim and critical extended family has appeared in court accused of defaming a world war 2 veteran the russian opposition leader is already in jail for violating his probation while recovering from a poisoning attack he leaders are calling for in the valleys release and considering sanctions on russia the russian foreign minister sergei lavrov has in return threatened to sever ties with the book. how russia treats this man and his supporters is affecting russia's relations with the european union . opposition leader and lexi metherell nia was arrested in january on his return to russia and jailed soon afterwards the is facing more court cases which his supporters say all politically motivated the e.u. is considering leveling new sanctions on moscow cheering an interview with the

russian you tube channel russia's foreign minister suggested the country could break ties with the e.u. if sanctions become a reality. you short of if we see again as we have felt more than once sanctions imposed in some areas create risks to our economy including in the most sensitive sphere is such a supplies of parts and components i'm convinced that with regards to the military we've become completely self-sufficient because we need to achieve the same situation in the economy. yes once again we don't want to be isolated from international life when you're hurt you but we must be ready for that if you want to use always be prepared for war it's. a spokesman for the kremlin tried to play down the comments and said that russia wants to develop ties with the bloc but relations are at their lowest point since

the cold war. here a paean foreign affairs chief seppo round met with his russian counterpart in moscow last week to discuss these cases. and during those talks moscow announced that it was expelling diplomats from germany and other e.u. states. for attending protests by and then found these supporters after the incident barel said that russia is going down a worrisome thora tarion route without room for democratic alternatives some e.u. law make his say they do not believe that the russian foreign minister would make good on his threat to sever ties. you know but. you know i was always my notes just from my point of view this is saber rattling no one should be surprised about that russia would be shooting itself in the foot if it wants to break off ties with the e.u.

. and north stream to you is one of those ties this gigantic pipeline project is meant to bring russian gas into europe and it's almost finished it's not clear where the new sanctions would affect this project worth billions of euros the venture is controversial and some e.u. member states oppose it but is committed to it. former european central bank chief mario draghi has agreed to serve as the new prime minister of italy 73 year old economist said he was ready to lead a national unity government designed to manage the effects of the coronavirus pandemic which has ravaged italy and sparked a deep recession for august was asked to step in by president matter rather when outgoing prime minister contests resigned after being unable to build political consensus the new government is to be sworn in on saturday with votes of confidence

in both houses of parliament expected early next week. of more on this let's go in runs into what are the most urgent topics for the new prime minister mario drug. well mr druggy has made it very clear taking of course his cue as well from president search of mother ella the 1st issue really is of course dealing with the pandemic dealing with the vaccination program which started out well in italy but then has been hit with many delays differences in terms of different regions how some are doing better than others so that's one key issue that he will be tackling and of course that's the health crisis but there's also the financial crisis the economic crisis that into the spacing it was already in a recession before the pentad me and that's all spahn lee been wasn't more than 400000 jobs have been lost in the last one year so dealing with employment the

economy and of course most keenly the european union recovery fund money that is expected to come in within $200000000000.00 euros coming out with a plan in terms of how they are going to spend that money to help italy deal with all these various financial issues so it's both the health and the well if you like in terms of the crisis that the country is facing that is his most immediate task at least that's what he said that he is expected to deal with zuma what does the new cabinet tell us about the course druggie wants to take for the country. well it's interesting to note that looking at the cabinet that he announced earlier this evening for instance key polls like the health minister i don't think the speed answer which is part of the previous government he will continue as well as the interior minister and. the peoples of the

foreign minister as well those will be the same but we see a clear mix of executives technocrats if you like but also a very strong political backing with a lot of political figures getting pulls across the board so what italy has seen technocrat prime ministers in the past i think this time around to see a very clear mix in terms of a few executive and technocrat polls but also as many political parties and these are political parties that were rivals not too long ago and now they're being forced to come together to work together in this national unity government. seem a good end run thank you so much the world health organization has said to publish the conclusions of it will have an investigation in the coming week the mission spent 4 weeks in china looking into the origins of the coded 19 outbreak speaking

in geneva director general ted ross. said the w.h.o. team conducted a quote very important scientific exercise in very difficult circumstances he is a little more of what he had to say some questions have been raised as to whether some hypothesis have been discarded having spoken with some members of the team i wish to confirm that all hypothesis remain open and require further analysis and studies. some of that work may lie outside the remit and scope of this mission. we have also said that this mission would not find all the answers but it has argued important information that takes us closer to understanding the all regions of the virus the

mission a better understanding of the early days of the pandemic and identified areas for further analysis and research well at the beginning of the pandemic sweden decided not to follow other governments in imposing a harsh lockdown sweden has suffered a high death rate and it's not a neighbor's but a few were fatalities then some countries that did close down they relaxed approach is a magnet for young visitors but many swades themselves and not so sure. at 1st glance this looks like life before the pandemic friends hugging each other and going on a shopping spree in stockholm here lot to do this sweet and hasn't imposed a lockdown instead authorities rely on people to use common sense and these young people see this as an invitation to come visit corey maher says he came from ireland 2 months ago to enjoy life and quickly found like minded people. who got

a coffee of. the jam and fields. of trying without being accosted by possible police members or possible security teams it feels good to be a lot of other feels good to be like existing a young person should be existing many of the other guests in the stockholm hostel agree they've come here from across europe from italy france and germany many are fleeing the covert 1000 restrictions in their homelands. right here as we discovered that the. other ones like me but there was you know where the same results will simply continue to be a lie but they live in rooms like this with 8 beds and no windows for weeks at a time when they came here after graduating from high school. when i came here a week and a half ago and saw people in restaurants talking and eating together normally without masks i thought i was dreaming on the other hand i can't forget what it's

like in germany right now. sweden has both mandatory and voluntary restrictions residents who can are asked to stay home there's a ban on serving alcohol in the evening and masks are only recommended during rush hour there have been more than 12000 covert 1000 deaths in a population of 10000000 this is left some doubtful when 82 year old krista anderson fell ill doctors refused to give him intensive medical care but after pressure from his daughter he received treatment options. i was angry i wondered if this really is the right way to go why are we doing this it's not working. we know that young people can spread this disease and the whole thing is far from over it will keep us busy for some time to come but corey marr is enjoying the freedom of the swedish way like going to a cafe or a bar it's something the irishman no longer wants to do without so he can't imagine returning home anymore instead he's looking for

a job that will allow him to extend his stay in sweden. well china has rung in the lunar new year kicking off a week long nationwide festival colorful illuminations and red lanterns a symbol of good luck welcomed in the year of the ox it's the 2nd year in a row that coded 19 has cast a shadow over the celebrations the holiday normally so use the world's biggest annual migration as people across china visit their families this year though the government is telling those same people to stay put. and a reminder before we go of the top stories we're following for you this hour donald trump's lawyers have opened because for the defense in his impeachment trial so the former u.s. president is the victim of a witch hunt traps team tonight inside of the capitol right and called the trial back to vengeance. and the former european central bank chief mario draghi has agreed to serve as the new prime minister of italy krugman says he is ready to lead

a national unity government aimed at steering italy out of the pandemic and the resulting perception. you're watching d.w. news after a short break i'll be back to take you through the day for men we can always get the latest news on their website that's to be found at d.w. dot com you can also follow us on twitter and instagram as well the handle you need is at d w news stay tuned in on the back shortly with the day. in

. the fight against the corona virus pandemic. now has the rate of infection been developing. what measures are being taken. what does the latest research say. information and context.

the coronavirus of data the code of special monday to friday on g.w. . every day counts for us and for our planet. the ideas is on its way to bring you more conservation. how do we make seniors greener how can we protect habitats. we can make a difference. cooling to the environmental series including $3000.00 on t.w. and on. why aren't people forced to hide in trucks. there are many things that. there are many answers. and there are many

stories. making a. total made for minds. as american lol mike is put the former president on trial and hung the new one joe biden faces his 1st fight on foreign shores obit one with familiar combatants germany wants a gas from russia america wants to flex its diplomatic muscles and russia this time wants america to stop meddling in its business i'm anthony howard in berlin and this is the day.