A day before formal consultations which take place between a president and parliamentary blocs does it designate the next leader at well larry resigned as Prime Minister in october following weeks of nationwide protests against the countrys ruling elite demonstrations accuse the government of rampant corruption and according for a complete overhaul of the post civil war secular political system rami khouri is a senior Public Policy fellow and professor of journalism at the American University of beirut he says harry reids decision is a signal that lebanons Political Leadership is starting to listen to Public Opinion well hes done this several times before is announce his candidacy that said hes not going to be a candidate than he was working by this and so prove the candidate so with these leaders who are not part of the old only got a system that has ruled lebanon for many decades you never know what is the real significance of what they are doing one thing is clear though there is a new element in the political arena and its the element of massive opulence this pressure on the street against the political traditional only logic sectarian leadership and maybe heady it is decision now because he said in the last week that he was expecting to be Prime Minister he started insulting people maybe his decision now actually means more than it would have meant before because he probably is aware that the popular sentiment among the protesters on the street is that he would not be acceptable is part of the old system that has failed and has bankrupt the country and sent half the population into poverty so probably has decision is more meaningful he will he opens the stage now for real consultations among the parliamentarians but also among different political groupings and the country and this is really unprecedented in lebanon. But livias attorney general has ordered the arrest of former president evo morales on charges of sedition and terrorism there and has resigned and left libya in november after protests and allegations of irregularities in the countrys election which saw him return to power he fed the country from mexico but a since flown to argentina where hes been granted asylum he says the protests which forced him from office often a 14 year is part of a right wing coup. Indias Supreme Court has postponed all hearings challenging a controversial citizenship law until next month theres been widespread anger over the new legislation which offers citizenship to persecuted minority is from neighboring countries excluded was lims style raman reports from christian i in the Northeastern State of assam the court delay means countless families and are living in limbo. Its a sleepy village in the middle of a sams agricultural belt people who live here in Christian Life are hindus and muslim yet all may soon be doomed undocumented migrants sudan sarka is a pensioner he was born and has lived in the region for as long as he can remember a big old speaking hindu he says this is home and hes indian but a recent government census deemed him and his family Illegal Migrants from bangladesh he was arrested and placed in a Detention Center for 3 years. Released on bail he says his experience was traumatic and has led to complex medical issues and psychological disorders. We would break through and call it 6 wash have a cup of tea and do a little exercise and then they would lock us up to be in the room was not large enough and we slept on the floor about what do you fire to a room sometimes not be fed until the next day. He shows me documents that date back to the 1930 s. Proving on the surface that his family has always lived in india the bengali originating in do and muslim communities here in christian number around about 400 families and theyve lived here for decades living alongside each other in peace and of course working the paddy fields here you can see behind me but the passage of the citizenship amendment could very well undermine their very existence and render some of them stateless. The new law potentially allows anyone fleeing communal riots or religious persecution talk life or indian citizenship but siddhartha and some of his neighbors cant apply because the government does not recognize their status High Court Lawyers like hafiz charge area waiting to see how the Supreme Courts rule on the controversial legislation now it is all an act of the past but parliament so that it wants it also with what it will consider benefit to those but what i was formally to look mentioning here. For the Indigenous People of the new legislation is worrying they say itll make them a minority in their own state by giving citizenship to him to refugees and then well have. Districts in the region have seen violence occurring and been speaking families their business have been burnt down and thered been Economic Loss but tangherlini or loss of life on this occasion the bengali hindu speaking community is scared. Sudans future is still uncertain his familys meager earnings revolve around the production of these plastic bags and the status of his family like those in the village of krishna i might not be made clear for some time. So robyn aljazeera question i assigned. A number of civilians have been killed in the nations round of russian and Syrian Government attacks on rebel held areas of northwestern syria shelling and asked trikes and the province of escalated in recent weeks the reports. The attacks only they probably are relentless theyre intensifying and witnesses say the majority of victims are civilians the paramedics known as the White Helmets are there within minutes to do what theyve done thousands of times during the war trying to save the lives of civilians. At about 11 oclock in the morning a fighter jet believed the russian carried out 6 Successive Air raids in the med johnny and you often areas they targeted displaced People Living in tents longer was killed and 6 others injured in Critical Condition are rushed to hospital the Civil Defense cristal combing the area searching for survivors. The damage was one of 35. 00 villages hit by russian and Syrian Government forces in a day province in the last 48. 00 ounce opposition activists say president Bashar Al Assads government appears to be preparing for a ground offensive its a mist to secure the main highway linking the capital damascus with the Northern City of aleppo the increase in attacks is having a devastating impact on people here this mans wife and 3 daughters were killed in an ass strike 4000000 syrians live in adelaide provence which is under the control of hyatt therea al sham an armed group with formal links to al qaeda the strikes on the Northwestern Province are in breach of the deescalation deal russia and turkey agreed last september but the Syrian Government says recapturing the province is just a matter of time victoria gates and be al jazeera. Because her own fighters have killed at least 14 civilians and injured 5 others during a raid in chad attack happened at a camp a fisherman on the banks of lake chad and the region has seen attacks from the armed groups around 10 years with all the 30000 People Killed 5 thousands of police have been deployed in the spanish city of boston or to make sure planned demonstration by catalan separatists does not disrupt one of the worlds most watched football matches a game known as a classico sees barcelona hosting its fierce rival real madrid and separatists aim to take advantage of global Media Coverage to promote said bid for independents they reach out to has more from barcelona i know when i was asian called the democratic tsunami called on protesters to gather it for gradually points surrounding the stadium here in barcelona the Police Presence remained low key despite roads being blocked hours before the match was due to begin the message from the catalonians was simple and direct brain search and tour. Even though we are mourning backed up by todays action will have a big impact because theres 400000000 people who will watch this match and we will show them what we want im here to defend our liberties and our right to decide and the freedom of Political Prisoners spain socialist Prime MinisterPedro Sanchez is already talking to catalonia 13 m. P. s in the new parliament hoping to gain their support in forming a new Coalition Government it seems every attempt is now being made to avoid the violent clashes seen in october when the leaders of the jailed. But the deadlock is proving stubbornly difficult to defuse. For a cigarette firms have been banned from promoting their products on public instagram pages by the u. K. Advertising watchdog the companies are accused of promoting the nicotine containing products in a way that would appeal to people under the age of 18 the firms are also accused of using models who appear to be under the age of 25. 00 which is banned under advertising regulations by one of the Companies Facing the ban says they only use social media platforms to interact with uses. A said for me the team or number of the south today are. Well lets take you back to capitol hill now the is a live pictures from the house of representatives where the final debate is underway over whether to impeach the president of the United States donald trump is facing charges of abusing his power and obstructing congress the impeachment version is expected in the coming al is. Just a moment ago republican senator Lindsey Graham said he wanted to see a quick impeachment trial in the Senate Without any new witnesses presented i think this exercise in the house is beginning to weaponize impeachment the Intel Committee could get the fact finding elements of it which is unusual the process they use i think is dangerous to the presidency is an institution when it gets here my goal is to have a short trial as possible or does that translate to when 51 people are ready to vote this one will vote the most likely outcome is to use the trial record. What they used in the house to impeach President Trump will be the trial record for the senate well lets remind you of how we got here patty hell he looks at the case for and against removing tom from office. It all began to unravel when the us president picked up his phone in july a call to the president of ukraine what was said anough for a whistleblower to file a complaint that made it to congress the allegation was that trump was Holding Hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid meant for ukraine which was fighting off russian aggression intil the ukrainian president promised to investigate trumps potential political rival former u. S. Vice President Joe Biden and his son hunter who had worked in ukraine in damage control mode the white house released notes from the call it did more damage because as the notes point out as the ukrainian president is promising to buy more u. S. Missiles trump responds i would like you to do us a favor though he goes on to ask for investigations into a debate Conspiracy Theory about the election and later brings up the bidens the president must be held accountable no one is above the law thats when democrats announced an impeachment inquiry would begin the white house refused to cooperate but several career diplomats came forward anyway they testified under oath that it all really happened colonel Alexander Vin min listen to the call and later reported it to white house lawyers it was improper for the president of the United States to demand a Foreign Government investigate a u. S. Citizen and a political opponent the former u. S. Ambassador to ukraine testified that she was removed from her position because she wanted to fight corruption so the president s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani pushed to get her removed and our anticorruption efforts got in the way of a desire for profit or power ukrainians who prefer to play by the old corrupt rules sought to remove me what continues to amaze me. Is that they found americans willing to partner with them and working together they apparently succeeded in orchestrating the removal of a u. S. Ambassador others described a small group of people chosen by the president as running a kind of shadow back channel u. S. Policy in ukraine missed it became clear to me that giulianis efforts to gin up politically motivated investigations were now infecting u. S. Engagement with ukraine leveraging president selenski desire for a white house meeting to withhold that systems for no good reason other than help with the Political Campaign made no sense it was it was counterproductive to all of what we had been trying to do. It was illogical it could not be explained it was crazy trumped meeting was going to happen and then came the surprising testimony from ambassador Gordon Sunland who changed his testimony from what he 1st told congress was there a quid pro quo as i testified previously with regard to the requested white house call and the white house meeting the answer is yes someone was a donor to the president s inauguration rewarded with an ambassadorship to the European Union and he was center to the plot and he said that everyone was in a suggestion that we were engaged in some irregular or rogue diplomacy is absolutely false the leadership of the state department the National Security council and the white house were all informed about the ukraine efforts and another state Department Official testified he heard some one on the phone with the president during the lunch ambassador silence said he was going to call President Trump to give an update master stalin placed a call on his mobile phone i heard of announce himself several times along the lines of gordon song and holding for the president ive entered president from ask so hes going to do the investigation. Basser song replied that he is going to do it adding a president selenski will do anything you ask him to do with that democrats say theyve made the case for 2 counts of impeachment one for abuse of power the 2nd for obstruction of congress. The vote out of the Committee Split down party lines with republicans launching very defenses 2 key facts have not changed that are critical to these impeachment proceedings one ukraine in fact received the aid and 2 there was no investigation into the bidens i have never in my entire life seen such an unfair rigged railroad job against the president of the United States and threw it on the president remained defiant its a witch hunt its a sham its a hoax a slight majority of americans polled actually support impeachment and removal but not by much and as of now the vote is expected to be partisan which would leave trump in office that could change of Public Opinion does during the trial setting up a high stakes gamble that will impact the president the country and the world. Aljazeera washington. Well lets now go to castro whos joining us live from capitol hill in washington d. C. How did this incredibly historic day on the hill today and weve been hearing really impassioned speeches from both sides talk us through what weve been seeing and hearing. Thats why they have been debating now for about 3 hours so but were still see less than health of the way through these 6 hours of schedule debates and they have been hardest and we are neck deep in these partisan arguments with nancy pelosi the democratic speaker of the house opening these arguments this morning saying that trump is an ongoing National Security threat to the country the articles under debate right now are abuse of power and obstruction of congress both charges leveled at trump in connection to the accusation that he tried to pressure ukraine to interfere in the upcoming president ial elections in his favor republicans calling that bogus they say this entirely he is a sham and an effort on part of the democrats to remove trump from office now there were some efforts part of the republicans earlier today to delay this upcoming vote but really it is delaying the inevitable because democrats certainly do have the numbers to cast this vote by the end of the day today is expected to impeach the president that will be a vote largely along party lines and that would make President Trump only the 3rd u. S. President to be impeached by congress heidi was saying the where about how off way through the debate now 6 hours of debate is this all taking longer than expected today. Well the rules are very finicky if they have 6 hours of debate time but the clock stops in between each speaker so in real world time its actually longer than 6 hours so were expecting here in washington to the final vote to be coming somewhere around 7 pm and of course really thats only the beginning because once trump is impeached as expected then that kicks off this whole process into the trial for action in the u. S. Senate where a very different political dynamic is to be expected of course thats the chamber controlled by the president s own party the republicans and it would take a 2 thirds majority to vote in that trunk and remove him from office and weve heard from Top Republicans in the senate that they do not plan to be impartial jurors that they are only on the white house side that theyre ordinated with the white house and they want this trial to happen and as quickly as possible. That live for us on capitol hill. Well Kellyanne Conway it appears as speaking live lets have a listen to what shes having to say influence or whats most important to you going into 2020 mph it was devil asked among republicans what event 11 out of 12 among all americans surveyed and for the democrats in the survey erick issues Like Health Care education the economy immigration Social Security those are ranked higher than impeachment in terms of the democratic priorities that hasnt been true of the democratic representatives up on capitol hill so if your title is representative you should be representing the will of the people and the will of the people is gone in the exact direction away from impeachment including if not especially among independents the impeachment proceedings a vote has collapsed among americans independents who by their very nature by their very definition independents intrinsically abor partisanship in politics and they saw too much of it here. Yes. Of the constitutional power of impeachment for one partys political game our constitution is the very foundation of our republic its assurance of selfdetermination has been the shining beacon by which our nation has chartered its course over the last 2 centuries from a new democratic experiment struggling to survive the letter was rated nation on earth policy america has been empowered as impersonal as President Trump should be 1st him in very a denigrating disparaging terms he is the president United States he is the commander in chief she pretends that its a solemn sad moment and absorb all the a pause while she was in that making some announcement to her myopic lemming like caucus that all voted with a couple exceptions for impeachment some of them risking political peril no doubt she also you know has had a hissy fit and huffed and puffed her way out of the cabinet room a couple times and ive been there a situation room where were talking trying to talk about the crisis at the border which she said was manufactured and then all of a sudden her Democratic Congress approved 1. 751. 375 1000000000. 00 for Border Security for something they called a manufactured crisis she stormed out of the infrastructure meeting stormed out of a meeting about syria and this is not leadership and shes made the impeachment very personal because here is Speaker Pelosi who just briefed the Senate Steering committee for their lunch on the dave impeachment and i tell them you know i really respected the fact that Speaker Pelosi for 9 months held forth you know when she was against have rushing into impeachment and kept saying that i kept saying that against a hell of criticism and out rude demands by some in her caucus particularly as freshman had promised to peach the president she held for then all of a sudden that just crumbled and ever since then theyve made bad decisions. Yes youve been listening to special advisor to the president Kellyanne Conway speaking there to the media in the White House Briefing room well lets dig into this a little more with some of the experts that we have with us at the moment we have 3 of them we have tried wilcox he is the professor of government at Georgetown University here in doha we also have Philip Bobbitt who is associate counsel to the office of the president under president carter and is also a professor at Columbia Law School and hes also written a book called impeachment 100. 00 buck and alan baron who joins us from washington is a former special impeachment counsel to the house of representatives im going to start here with clyde clyde weve been hearing from various members of the Republican Party and just moments ago we had from Lindsey Graham and he said that he was pushing for this very Speedy Senate trial no witnesses presumably thats what Mitch Mcconnell wants as well and presumably then thats what will happen well it depends there are a number of republicans who are floating the idea that theyve made to go sheet with the connell if at least 3 or 4 were to say to him we will not approve the rules that you have proposed unless you make these accommodations including your witnesses then he has to go along with them im going to bring in alan baron because alan there has been talk and we were discussing this a little bit earlier about potentially avoiding a senate trial what are the ways that we could do that im hearing the phrase conditional impeachment what would that involve. Im not sure about the phrase conditional impeachment but what unless what is meant is the house goes through the process of bringing articles of impeachment and then holds them there is nothing in the constitution says you must then deliver them to the senate for a proceeding or trial or whatever the senate decides to do and indeed the constitution doesnt exactly say what the senate has to hold a trial. Its silent on all of that so what i was talking about at an earlier time when we spoke. Its conceivable to me that the house votes articles of impeachment and does not deliver them they literally walk them down from one end of the Capitol Building to the other to present them to the senate well of the senate doesnt receive the articles there is nothing for them to proceed upon and the house can continue to investigate maybe subpoena some witnesses that they have not yet so far and. Just continue their work and take it right up to the to the election in november mr bobbitt im going to bring you in harris while im curious because there has been speculation about potentially no senate trial and perhaps a vote of censure is that a possibility and is that a likelihood that if Everyone Wants to avoid a senate trial that both houses might just vote to wrap President Trump on the knuckles no i think thats most unlikely. I suppose if the problem is a lack of sufficient evidence in the cure would be to get the testimony from persons that the president has refused to let testify. And i think the only way thats likely to happen is on something. Along the lines of what cliff mentioned and that is the long transmittal to the senate and then begin the process of subpoena trying to get the testimony of the secretary of state the former National Security adviser and the chief of staff in a century i dont see it like clyde let me come back to you here in the studio because we weve been talking about this incredibly potus on process and weve also had that Mitch Mcconnell has been saying that hes working in coordination with the white house so were not necessarily looking at a at an entirely fair objective impartial trial in the senate why have other in the history why have other parties and other situations not resulted in impeachment was there a sense that you needed some kind of cross partisan support in order to to try to push a process of impeachment 3 no i dont think so and moreover the fact that this is partisan is partly because to be honest the republicans are saying that the sun revolves around the earth i mean theyre saying it was ukraine who was involved in the 2016 election theyre saying that really joe biden was trying to corrupt the ukraine none of this is true and they know none of it is true so of course its going to be partisan if the other party simply refuses to engage someone mentioned earlier that watergate was not as serious as this and i agree yet in the watergate hearings it was howard baker who said i want to know when what the president knew and when he knew it and howard baker was a republican there was partisanship there for sure but some people took the job of determining what the president has done seriously. At that point i mean so thank all of our panel of expats thats clyde. Well cox here with me in doha alan baron who is with us from washington d. C. And Philip Bobbitt whos with us from new york thank you for all of our guests theyre going to stay with us as we continue our special coverage here of the impeachment proceedings well right now its 20 g. M. T. Thats 3 pm in washington d. C. And when our 3 hours into the final debate over whether to impeach the president of the United States democrats and republicans in the house of representatives are currently making their case about whether or not donald trump violated the constitution hes accused of withholding aid to the to ukraine to pressures and to investigation his political rival the democrat controlled house is expected to make trump the 3rd president to be impeached in u. S. History trump has dismissed the process as an assault on america