>> this is dw news live from berlin, the u.s. congress confirms joe biden at the next president of the united states. republican objections failed to derail the democrats victory over president trump and having refused for so long to accept the result, the president finally pledges an orderly transition of power. that came just hours after an angry pro-trump a mob storm the

capital, forcing lawmakers into hiding. outside, police used tear gas to disperse them, shooting and killing one woman. world leaders react with shock at the scenes, angela merkel criticizes president trump for stoking the violence by failing to admit defeat. phil: welcome to the program. u.s. congress has certified joe biden as the winner of novembers residential election after unprecedented washington dc -- unrest in washington see -- washington dc brought them to halt the vote. a mob of president trump supporters forced its way into the capital causing lawmakers to flee. seen here, democrats -- senior

democrats and republicans blame the president for stoking the barents -- violence for challenging joe biden's victory with allegations of fraud. a number of white house officials have now resigned. scott anderson is a senior fellow at columbia law school and joins us now, welcome to dw. did president trump insight this violence? >> it is hard to point to anyone thing in any event as complex as this, but the seems to be few dots that the preside's comments wednesday morning before the crowd encouraging them to go to the capital was at least the straw that broke the camels back and pushing them toward that path of action that ultimately ended in the violent display. phil: what consequences if any should he face? >> that is really a question for congress at this point, the

clearest possibility would be impeachment. at this point it seems unlikely that his cabinet will attempt to remove him which is a constitutional possibility, but the fact we have seen some members resigned means that they -- there likely is not a way forward that would require a majority of the cabinet members to sign off for that. that leaves impeachment by a majority of the house and conviction by two thirds of the senate, an uphill battle. of course the president has already been impeached once but not confirmed by the senate, that would all take place in the next 13-14 days for him to be removed. it is worth noting the senat also has the ability to bar someone from future office for being convicted and is a theoretical possibility that a president or some other facial -- official could be impeached after leaving office. phil: there has been a lot of talk about this right -- riot

this assault on american democracy, is that the way you see it? >> i think it is hard to see it any other way, this was a key institutional moment. this is the moment that as congress signs off on its electoral votes that determines who becomes the new president, the results were established in line with state laws as ordered by the constitution, this was some way the last act to sign off on those results and to confirm who is going to be the next president. this violence was all aimed at disrupting that. that is an assault and an effort to distract -- disrupt a core constitutional order in our democracy. phil: and how do democracy do -- did democracy do? >> so far it seems to have weathered the storm, so far congress has come back together in a small actast night on the floor of congress to move forward, confirming that you buy

the and will be the president on january 20 as the voters have elected. in that case, the path here was not in doubt or at least was not seriously threatened because congress was on board. nonetheless the facthat members of congress not to mention capitol police officers have risked their lives to bring what should have been the lawful conclusion into being raises serious questions and concerns. phil: there is a poll that indicates 45 percent of republican voters approve of this storming of the u.s. capitol, what does this tell us about the future of american politics? >> certainly indicates that there is a broad divide among the american electorate, that big part of t country view fundamental facts somewhat differently. i think that is something we should takwith a gin of salt this early in the game, i think we need to look at how people

react to this moving forward. i think that poll was administrator -- administered as the events were unfolding, that said, it is clear that most republican officials at least those on t ground in waington as well as democrats condemned the actions, no one was defending it on capitol hill. i think that itself is telling. phil: good talking to you, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. phil: not surprisingly those images have created shockwaves around the world and here in germany, the german chancellor has criticized president trump's persistent refusal to accept the election result and its consequences. >> the violence in washington has been met with disbelief in the german government, the condemnation was led by angela merkel herself. >> we all saw the unsettling

pictures of the congress being stormed yesterday evening and these images made me angry and also sad. i very much regret that since november, president trump has not acknowledged his defeat and fails again to do so yesterday. doubts about the outcome of the election were stoked and that set the stage for what made wednesday's events possible in the first place. phil: germany's president was even more outspoken -- >> the scenes we have seen at the result of lies and evermore lies of divisiveness and disdain for democracy. of hate and incitement from even the very highest quarters. adding to the sense of alarm, just months ago here in berlin, a far right mob tried to break into germany's parliament during a protest over pandemic restrictions.

they failed to get in, now events in washington are a chilling echo. >> i was very shocked, these pictures reminded me of the situation that the german parliament when conspiracy theorist stormed the building. was really bad was the in the usa of all places, people managed to get through. there was no police, no one could stop them. terrible, i did not expect something like this, but i guess you can't expect anything else from trump. >> trump's time is office is nearly up, but the aftershocks of this week will last for much longer not just in washington, but all over the western world. phil: let's get more on the german perspective from a member of germany's parliament who was one of europe's official election observers in the united

states. how concerned are you about these events in washington? >> frankly speaking, we are appalled. my party and myself, i am a frequent visitor twashington, d.c., we have a lot of good colleagues in the house of representatives and the senate did we work closely together and the parliamentary assembly and had a lot of contact last night. it is appalling, it is a shame, and we know who is responsible for it. phil: it might be appalling, it might be a shame, and there are people saying this is an assault on democracy, but what we have seen is the resilience of democratic structures. we have a mob that tried to derail the process and it failed, so the sysm works. >> yes, y bring up a interesting point, some people came up today in german press and media and said is the u.s. a failing democracy? no, it isn't, for example, the

judicial branch of government work. many lawsuits have been filed by trump and he failed with every single one of them including the supreme court, so yes, the system works. no democracy, i think that is the lesson to draw, no democracy is protected when one of the incumbents tries fm holding office is overstepping, and tha is what trump did all the time ever since the election, he overstepped his consequences and he was inciting this violence by this hate steep -- speech he was using ever since the electoral campaign. phil: do you think german democracy is any more robust than that in the u.s.? we have heard report of similar mob scenes in germany and the official opposition is of course the far-right afd. >> that is a mter of concern

because here in the rfd you have all sorts of strange people who are not only denying covid in many ways, but of course who have a really unclear relation to extremist right-wing groups including anti-semitic indices -- tendencies. but we germans i don't think we have any reason to be too self-confident. we indeed have these dgers in all countries and yesterday's events in the u.s. capitol should serve as a wake-up call that we need to defend democracy wherever threats arise including of course here at home. phil: your part of the short-term observer mission to the united states, will you are there, what did you observe? >> i had the privilege to lead this observer mission to the

united states and what we had published in our report after electoral day and based on a long-term observation of around six weeks, we had clearly not seen any evidence of the flawed and allegations brought forward by the incumbent president. meanwhile, all of his complaints, all of his unbaked allegations have been clearly rejected by the courts. i think our observation, the very principle of international obrvation in elections is an important added value the we can bring -- and that we can bring to the international community and especially the citizens of the country concerned. that is what weo whene observe elections. by the way our elections will be observed by third parties also. phil: thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you for having me.

phil: we will take a look at some other stories making news around the world now. germany has made -- germany's main stock exchange index has broken record. the blue-chip index has rocketed over 17% from last year. investors are hoping u.s. economic stimulus measures will boost demand for german goods. at least five people have been killed in afghanistan's province. authorities say there is evidence of death from an airstrike, women and children are amongst the victims. japan has declared a state of emergency for tokyo and three nearby regions as coronavirus cases rise to new daily highs. stay-at-home measures will be enforced from friday for a month. the japanese capital reported more than 2400 cases on thursday, almost 1000 more than the previous day. in the u.s. over 5 million

people have been inoculated against coronavirus. the u.k. has immunized more than one million but the european union has not been so fast you'd one reason is a slower approval process from the european medicine agency. even people within member states, inoculation programs are running at different speeds. >> the netherlands is the last country to begin vaccinating as population using the pfizer vaccine, the first approved for use in europe. people like listeners are only now starting to get it. it seems the dutch act the wrong horse, the government was expecting the vaccine developed by oxford university and astrazeneca to come on stream first. >> it was no longer possible to adjust the planning accordingly, that has to do with all the careful steps we wanted to take. we have succeeded in getting vaccinations started and they will not stop until the last

person is vaccinated. >> francaise cautious -- france's cautious approach has left many curious, only about 500 jabs were administered in the first week. a complicated systeof getting consent is partly to blame. >> it is something new and you have to get consent. could we go faster without consent or n? there are ethical questions and it is quite complex. it is not as simple as saying, let's do this faster. >> others in france point to bureaucratic delays slowing the rollout of the vaccine. denmark has got off to a strong start, leading europe in vaccination numbers. one reason, nurses can extract more vaccines per vial by measuring doses carefully.

>> that means we can do it faster than we thought we could. >> denmark is also spacing out the gap between the two required doses of vaccine, allowing more people to get a first injection sooner. for the moment, some eu states are immunizing much faster than others. on wednesday the european commission gave final approval to a vaccine developed by the u.s. pharmaceutical giant moderna, a welcome boost in the fight against the coronavirus. phil: let's look at european progress in this area, a member of the european parliament and speaks on health for the group of conservative parties. he also happens to be a medical doctor, welcome to dw. why are european countries moving so slowly even after vaccines have been approved? >> there are different

situations in different countries and i think we should all look to denmark especially when it comes to the issue that you can get six doses from one vial. everybody should do it as fast as possible and we can get 20% more people vaccinated with the same amount of vaccine without taking anything away from anyone else. we should look at this example and everyone should follow. phil: was it right to wait longer to approve the vaccines rather than use the emergency approval process? hundreds, maybe thousands died as the u.s. and u.k. had already started vaccinating. >> we have a marathon here,t is not in my view important to start one or twoeeks earlier when we want to end the pandemic , more than two thirds of the citizens need to be vaccinated. that is why the process needto

be sound. with the approval in the european union, it was not an, but a condionalarket licensing, there is liability for the company. that adds stress to the process and that is also the reason why the european union had to delay in the contract. obviously donald trump and boris johnson were ready to signed the contract without any liability for the company and i think it is better to have more confidence so that we can really stop the pandemic and also the reason that we ordered less from some american-based companies has been proven right with the pictures from washington. we have a guy in the white house and when we did the contact, we did not know if he would be reelected, that it is possible to do every crazy thing. he could have stopped american company from delivering the vaccine to europe. [indiscernible]

phil: let's concentrate on how the europeans run european affairs. [indiscernible] phil: can iust put it to you perhaps the the people who died in the time that the european medicines agency took to actually start vaccinating might disagree with your assessment that it is not important to be quick? >> so please be careful, this is really aery dangous argument. when somebody dies from coronavirus, the first question is, why didn't we act faster and clearer? l those people from the oppotion in germany from the liberals that always said corona is not dangerous, theyre using this argument now and they should really shut up. il: we will have to leave it there because were out of time, but thank you for joining us. south africa has ordered 1.5

million doses of the astrazeneca vaccine to be given to health workers. hospitals have been overwhelmed by this more contagious coronavirus variant. the official death tolls has top 30,000, we visited a hospital in cape town where doctors are having to improvise to save lives. >> this is not a waiting room, it is the treatment room for covid patients at the hospital. one patientalls out to us to tell us she had been sitting and waiting for three days, waiting for beds to become free next door. >> sit on a chair, so we put them on the stretcher. >> this doctor has been working here for nine years into this pandemic is pushing him to his limits. a third of his colleagues here have already had the virus. how do you feel to see your

hospital like this? >> sometimes you don't have enough space, sometimes we don't have enough oxygen. we need to improvise and see how we can -- sometimes you have to choose. who do you give fit the oxygen and in which way? >> on average, one person with covid dies in the hospital everyday. there is a small room next door with somewhat better beds for acute patients waiting for an intensive care bed and -- at another hospital. the local health minister admits that not everyone can get an icu bed, most are already full. >> [indiscernible] the house is on fire. >> this is the waiting area of

the hospital where people would normally wait for treatment, but you can see, people who come here with non-covid related issues, aberrant disease, are for not being treated here because they need the space on the others -- other side for potential covid cases. >> south africa has reintroduced tough or locked on measures, there is a stricter masco requirement, alcohol sales are banned, and beaches have been closed. police are overwhelmed with enforcing the rules. only patients over the age of 45 are now being tested at the clinics, the demand is overwhelming. here, a virologist -- here, in a virologist's liberatory, every test is positive. the peak of the second wave is expected mid january, but after that, they anticipate further waves. >> i fear that neither the

current in norma's surge we are experiencing now, nor t arrival of a vaccine sometime halfway into the new year for a small proportion of the population will be able to make a difference. >> the government announced it is already in talks with vaccine manufacturers, but there are no details yet. there is hope, initial studies show that during the first wave, up to 40% of residentsere already infected and possibly even immune, social distancing remains impossible for many. this doctor and his team are still bracing for a tough few weeks ahead of them. phil: there is a strong reaction to the storming of the u.s. capitol and the increasingly political national basketball association. players and coaches condemned the violence, one critic is a philadelphia coach and former

player doc rivers, a vocal supporter of thelack liv matter movement. >> i will say it because i don't ink a lot ofeople want to, could you igine today if those were all black people storming the capital? and what would have happened? its a sad day in a lot of ways, not good for our country, more across the borders that people see this. it is part of what we are and so we have to solve the -- it. phil: must talk about this with kres harrington from dw sports, are we surprised he had to say this? >> not at all because he has always use his platform to support black lives matter and when you know more about doc rivers, he grew up during the civil rights era and prior to joining philadelphia, he was a coach of a team, the los angeles clippers and their owner was ousted by the league because of

racial remarks he made in 2014. doc rivers has always put himself in this position, in the crosshairs so to speak. he has obviously garnered a lot of support. another thing he mentioned talking about if they were black, he just reference last summer a black lives matter protest at the capital and i have been in the military and what i saw, it looked like a full brigade in battle rattle. pledged -- the deterrent was so strong no one dared stepped over the capital and a lot of people said specifically doc rivers said that that proves the point about eight privileged life in a lot of ways. i agree with him completely, it is sad to see that play out. phil: taking it back to yesterday, there as a rally, it was programmed, it was not like it took anybody by surprise and yet, no cops. what other responses have there been from the sports world? >> most of them have come from

the nba, you can argue that the nba is one of the more progressive professional sports in the states. this season they had in a bubble, they allowed their players to put progressive messages on the back of their jerseys and so forth. lebron james has always had a war of words with president trump, upset about how divisive he has been in the white house. one player, kawhi leonard, the nba is 81% black so a lot of the players had similar things to say, what he had to say was, it is sad to see because if it were us out there, we would see teargas and so forth, but then you saw none of it. i think it pretty much does shine a light on why there were protests in the first place about black lives matter because i think anyone seeing the optics would have to condemn the lack of law enforcement interaction. law enforcement is there to protect and serve and typically they do that and you always

don't see the selective behavior that played out. that is the way it is and we deftly need to improve. phil: thank you. here is a reminder of our top sport -- story, congress has confirmed joe biden as the next president of the united states. the confirmation came hours after supporters of donald trump tried to disrupt proceedings by storming the u.s. capitol building, one person was shot and killed in the violence. that is it for now, more world news at the top of the hour, i will be back with the day in just a moment. ♪

>> it is 10:00 p.m. in the french capitol. he are our headlines. joe biden called the capitol riots one of the darkest days in u.s. history, as the speaker of the house calls for donald trump to be impeached again. more on that coming up. despite the unrest in washington, joe biden's victory has been certified as lawmakers be convened after the attack on their chambers. french bars, restaurants, and cafes are to stay shut until at least mid february. we will bring you more on