anchor: leaders gather in jerusalem to mark the 75th anniversary of auschwitz's liberation. it is amid a resurgence of anti-semitism. a city of more than 11 million people in chihina is under lockdown to stop the spread of the deadlyly coronavirusus. ththe illness has sickened hundreds and continues to spread throughout asia and across the world. up live from paris, day two of donaldd trump's impeachment hearing. managers outlined the case of

removing the american president from office following a debate over subpoenas. according to the latest polls, 72 percent of americans want to hear from witnesses in the trial. ♪ anchor: thank you for watching france 24. we start with our top story. dozens of world leaders have descended upon jerusalem for what is being dubbed the lalargt everett gathering focused on commemorating the holocaust and battling anti-semitism. among them is emmanuel macron. we also have vladimir putin, mike pence, among others.

missing,s notably poland's leader, who is staying away because of disputes with russia and israel. i would like to bring in our international affairs editor, who will be with us throughout the program. thank you for being with us. pointedly missing from that event is poland's president, who announced he would not be attending because he had not been asked to give a speech at the event. we are waiting to go live. you can see the german president. what is this spat about? . the official explanation from the organizers of the event is that they invited the representatives of the countries ort won world war ii perpetrated the holocaust, in the case of germany. poland does not fall into either of those categories. the reason the issue came up is

because president duda wanted the opportunity to speak at the podium in order to rebut any allegations that president putin might make, because there is a spat between russia and poland on the issue of world war ii and the holocaust and poland's place in world war ii. at the defense ministry in moscow, vladimir putin said poland colluded with the nazis. that there was an opportunity that was seized upon to get rid of jews in poland. when he said that he did not mention the fact that poland's intelligentsia was killed by the nazis. and slavs were seen as subhuman according to nazi poland was a and subjugated nation by nazi

germany and it was the nazi-soviet pact which paved the way for the occupation of poland. the polish authorities are outraged by the speech given by putin. they save we do go to jerusalem for the ceremony, we must have a chance to speak, because we think that putin will try to distort history, therefore we must have the right of reply and be allowed to speak at the ceremony just like you would be speaking. in the organizers said no, we are sticking to this format, nations that won world war ii or germany, who perpetrated the holocaust. we are only going to give those representatives a right to speak. atat that point the polish government said we are not going to go at all. anchor: something else getting attention is the attendance of vladimir putin. i've not seen him in the images. this is live footage of the event before the ceremony kicks

off shortly. how significant is it that vladimir putin is there and delivering an address? reporter: i suppose it reflects two things. firstly, the political ties between putin and netanyahu. netanyahu has cultivated putin over the last few years. he knows that russia is an important player in syria and the region in general. he is trying to have a good relationship with vladimir putin. putin himself has been to israel twice before. his first official visit was in 2005. every time he has gone there has been some kind of event to do with history, with the past, with world war ii. for example, in 2012 he unveiled a monument to the great patriotic war, as it is known in russia. the reason for all of this is because the two countries are

israel.ned, russia and there are estimates of several thousand world war ii, soviet inld war ii veterans living israel because they were soviet citizens at the time. then they emigrated to israel once the immigration was allowed from the 1970's onward. there are historical links between russia and israel for that reason. putin unveiled a memorial to the siege of leningrad, which is something that putin's own mother and family suffered in very much, the nazi siege of leningrad, now st. petersburg, putin's hometown. at the time you had soviet jews sharing the fate of non-jewish ofsians in the city leningrad. this is one of the sambol and symbolic moments

that putin underscored these shared destinies in a way. you have the cultural side and a political angle with netanyahu and putin as welell. .nchor: behind you a warm hug emmanuel macron has been greeting the leaders attending. there is someone missing from one of those seats. another political dispute politically coming up, something potentially overshadowing the event. president zelenskiy, the ukrainian leader, potentially giving up his seat. he was invited but gave up his seat, offering it to holocaust survivors. in the background of this is a slight controversy about the

number of actual holocaust survivors that have been invited . it is not considered to be a great number of people. the organizers of the event said we have reached out to everyone who was potentially interested. obviously, you have to take into account these are very old people. they might not be able to sit through a long ceremony. they said it was strange that president zelensky chose to take the step because it is not as if you can at the last minute invite a 95-year-old and say come and jump in your car and come to the ceremony and take up the seat vacated by president zelensky. involvese complex and organization and security and so forth. the organizers of the event said that that was an odd decision. i don't know if feeding into this was a sense of slight possibly given the fact that

ukraine, as it is now, is a country in which previously under the soviet union many, many soviet jews were killed by the nazis on ukrainian soil. from that point of view perhaps it might have been important for the world holocaust forum to have a high representative of the ukrainian state, now independent ukraine, at the ceremony. at any case, they don't have that because president zelensky was not there. anchor: earlier we heard from our correspondent at the event that some of the relatives of holocaust survivors are saying that a lot of these people are in their 80's. there is another big ceremony to commemorate the liberation of auschwitz in five years, they may not be able to attend. let's go live to our correspondent on the ground standing by. thank you so much for being with us. we heard earlier, we have been speaking to our international

affairs editor about this, that representatives from various countries will be giving addresses at the ceremony. we are waiting for it to kick off. there is a delay. those representatives are from the winners of the world war, in addition to the perpetrators, germany. what was behind that decision? think every nation that fought in the war was profoundly affected by it, including, as we have just been hearing, ukraine. this is an attempt to limit the speakers perhaps to the most important ones. the role of the red army is central. the funding comes from a russian jewish businessmen. we definitely have to hear from vladimir putin. we would have to hear from the nations who fought in the war. that would include america, britain, france. i think that decision was made

speakers.he it is impossible to hold an event like this and not hear from germany. not that today's germany is nazi germany, but it is the nation that began this led by adolf hitler. it was his initiative, his cruel, brutal vision that led to the murder of 6 million jews. you cannot n not hear from the descendents of that vision, even those who have repudiated that vision. he has been very vocal since arriving on israeli soil yesterday. tell us about what we have been hearing from him. has been very vocal about anti-semitism. he confronts it straight on in all of his speeches. he spoke earlier to french members of the jewish community

here. france isem that battling anti-semitism, but that it is a war you can't win. it is a shape shifter. he said his government has closed down many organizations who had views that were anti-semitic, but he knows that it is a battle. you win one battle and you keep fighting. that is something that israel, it is part of the angst in israel in holding this is to remember the past and fight anti-semitism today. they would be very pleased to hear that their views have been taken on board, or in fact shared by emmanuel macron. ,hat is part of the warm hug perhaps. there is no doubt it is a warm relationship. you can see it in every exchange between them. he is a very w warm man.. anchor: do standby for us. we will be coming back as soon

as the event starts and we start hearing from the global leaders. abouthave been speaking the cereremony this thursday and in the images we are seeing coming out of the ceremony, emmanuel macron visited the israeli site at the end of a forest of jerusalem and tel aviv, a major memorial from france during the second world war. for many -- he was heading into his fourth year in 1 1942 when he died. i have a name in hebrew. it was solomon in hebrew. she was my aunt, and he was my uncle. of hisly 40 members family were killed. all of their names are listed on

this curved wall. 35 meters across and four meters tall, it is known as the memorial. for the families, it means much more. >> it is not a monument. it is our cemetery because our parents, our families died at auschwitz. so weon't have graves, need a place to gather them. >> 80,000 names are written on the wall with the 80,000 people deported from france who never came back from the camps. listed in alphabetical order are their names and dates of birth, arrests, and death. the result of decades of archival work by the son of auschwitz victims and a famous nazi hunter, along with his wife. wasy father thought it necessary to collect the names of the victims. it is something neither france nor the jewish community had done.

my father also did work on the memorial to the deportation of children. 11 thousand children were deported from france. we have 4000 photos of them. was inaugurated on june 18, 1981, a date remembered for the famous call in 1940 to rally the french resistance. since then 80,000 trees have been planted in remembrance of france's stolen lives. the report from our team on the ground. the three-hour ceremony at yad vashem is expected to start at some point this afternoon. there has been a considerable delay. myself, our international affairs editor, and our reporter on the ground will be bringing you live coverage of the ceremony when it starts. we are expecting addresses from several global leaders. france'shem, images of

president, emmanuel macron. moving onto other world news, more than 570 people in china have been infected with a new virus. the number may be much higher. authorities have banned travel from wuhan, the epepicenter of e outbreak. the virus has been detected as far away as the united states. let's listen to our correspondent reporting from beijing. since 10:00 a.m. local time this thursday m morning, al public transport in wuhan suspended, as well as departures from bus and train stations. this is an influx of people trying to get out of the city before the deadline, trying to not be in quarantine in the central chinese city. a few reminders that wuhan is a

city of 11 million people. that is larger than london. on an average day there are 700,000 travelers using the three main train stations. citywe are hearing is the 's hospitals are at capacity with lococal chinese media sayig people are in the core doors of of the hospitatals. therere have been measures forcg people to wear masks in public spaces like hotels, restaurants, and cinemas. the e asures h have been appudud by the w world health organizatn this thursdaday. there has been some criticism on chinese sosocial media, notably. the argumentnt that people are wondering why these measures had not been taken earlier. of the now today two president's impeachment trial. after laying out the rules democrats in the senate have

been presenting their argument for donald trump's removal from office. they accuse the u.s. leader of a corrupt scheme to pressure ukraine to get reelected. trump has told reporters in davos that the democrats do not have enough evidence to find him guilty. present their case for donald trump's removal from office in impeachment managers are calling on republican senators to act now to protect u.s. democracy. >> nothing could be more dangerous to a democracy than a commander and chief that believes he can operate with impunity free from accountability. nothing, that is, except a congress willing to let it be so. is not conduct impeachable, notothing is. >> democrats are partway through a 24-hour session where they are laying out their charges against the president. they are striving to remove trump from office after he was impeached in december will stop

if successful, it could win over public opinion ahead of the general election. efforts have failed so far according to republican senators. >> they weren't happy with the results of the 2016 election and are concerned that they're going to have real problems in the 2020 election when we look at the candidates running for president against president trump. >> they arare repeating the same points they made for 13 hours yesterday. i suspect the democrats threw a fit yesterday, insisted they needed at least three full days to present the argument. >> president trump denies pressuring ukraine into investigating his political rival, joe biden. saying he will not be removed from office anytime soon. greatent trump: i have confidence in the senate. this is an impeachment hoax, and we have had it from the beginning, from the day i got elected. >> president trump's legal team

is expected on saturday. they will need to win over 20 republican points to win the super majority required to remove the president from office. anchor: moving on, international court in the hague has said they have the authority to rule over a case in which myanmar is ruled in genocide over the rohingya. it was launched by gambia, canada, and the netherlands and seeks to grant access to human bodies investigating alleged crimes against the muslim minority population, calling kate isry and why the being heard before the court today. become tooave familiar. hundreds of thousands of refugees packed into makeshift camps on the border between myanmar and bangladesh will stop the migrants belonging to the rohingya population have been

forced o out of the country on a massive scale since 2017. they have been called the world's largest list -- largest state-less people. minority group has faced long-running persecution in majority buddhist myanmar. the current crisis began in 2017, win attacks by rohingya military groups killed 12 security officers. myanmar's military responded with what the united nations and several countries have labeled ethnic cleansing. a charge that the myanmar government denies. right groups estimate at least 10,000 rohingygya were killed in months. 100,000 fled to neighboring bangladesh.

adding to widespread international shock at the violence is the role of the myanmar civilian leader, the nobel peace prize winner. long recognized as an icon of democracy. after myanmar's partial transition to democracy she became the state counsel and effective head of the country. she has been a defender of the actions insisting that rohingya refugees are free to return to myanmar. in the it is 1:22 p.m. french capital. we are bringing you live coverage from the for the world holocaust forum taking place commemoration a of the liberation of auschwitz. 1.1 million people were slaughtered, most of them jews. you can see live images. it has been dubbed the biggestst diplomomatic event in israel historyy with 40 dignitaries attending. i am joined onset by our

international affairs editor. we are waiting for that ceremony to really statart with an addres from the israeli president. it is a three hour event. it has been delayed. we will have a symbolic moment where some survivors of the holocaust attending will be lighting a flame to commemorate the victims. let's talk about some of the attendees. some of them will be hearing from, including emmanuel macron, and russian president vladimir putin. what have we been hearing from them on the hololocaust in the past couple e of days? attention has been on president putin. we havave heard from him b becae he unveiled a memorial to those who died in the siege of leningrad in the second world

war. the reason why this is happening on israeli territory is because of course there are many soviet jews who perished in that siege and fought in the red army will stop there is the sense of a shared destiny in a sense between soviet jews and non-jewish soviet russian citizens who fought and suffered in the second world war. that is something both president putin and prime minister netanyahu have been underlining at the events they have been attending this morning. prime minister netanyahu saying that the people of leningrad talked the world a lesson in steadfastness s and bravery, and adding that israel would never forget who liberated auschwitz. that is to say, the red army. this has been an opportunity so far for the israeli and russian leaders to stand together in a

way at the diplomatic expense of poland. there is a problem at the moment between russia and poland, and israel and poland on the questions of historical memory. poland passed a law which made it a criminal offense to accuse poles of being g perpetrators of the holocaust. that really soured relations between israel and poland. on top of that there is a dispute between russia and poland about polish anti-semitism, and whether poland was a victim or a perpetrator. the historical record is clear that poland wasn't occupied territory. there have been recent attempts by putin to revive this historical record to some extent, and that has brought strong reaction from poland

against russia. one of the consequences of this is the polish president is not at this event and not speaking at this event. you can understand why he did it. had he gone he would not have been the opportunity -- would not have been given the opportunity to speak, because the world holocaust foundation, i think it is called -- a forum. i'm sorry. world holocaust forum. they made it clear they are going to invite the perpetrator, that is to say nazi germany, and the countries that won world war ii -- anchor: i have to interrupt because we have the first speaker. the president of israel giving an address. rivlin: your highness is, your excellencies, prime minister, heads and president of

parliaments, representatives of ,any delegations who came to us distinguished guests and all of my friends, and i have so many good friends coming because

- hey, i'm valererie june. comingp onon reel s south . - [chris] ththere's something wrong with this system. these people, they needed a p place to o stt. - [valie] a booming nashvie grapeses witthe e hun cost of velopmt. - where you gonna go? wherere you gonna run to? under the bridge, toto the mission? but this is the point. we homeleless. we ain't't got nowhere to o go. - [valerie] and d a ststalwart tenent communiy unravels on the brink of eviction. - i'm not taking a thing off this hill. you want it?! it's yours! destroy my world! - [protestors] no housing! no peace! - [valerie] foll a alongonl