On wednesday, house of representatives is almost certain to vote in favour of impeaching President Trump. Thats whats prompted an extraordinary letter from the president to the speaker of the house of represantatives. From the president to the speaker of the house of representatives. It includes baseless allegations, for example. Theres massive exaggeration too. He also accuses democrats of. If the house votes in favour of impeachment, there will be a trial in the upper house of congress, the senate, and today the House Rules Committee has been meeting to establish the rules that will govern that process. The president is facing two articles of impeachment. The chair of the committee set out the first one. President trump withheld congressionally approved a to the ukraine. Not to fight corruption, but to extract a personal political favour. President trump refused to meet with ukraines president until he completed the scheme. The second charge against president is obstructing congress thats related to the white house telling staff not to testify or release some documents. Serious charges no doubt but this matter will be resolved with a vote in senate. Republicans have a majority. And for the president to be impeached 2 3s of senators must vote for it happen. That looks very very unlikely. Heres one of the the leading republican on the hosue rules committee explaining his opposition. This is not the result of a fair process and certainly not a bipartisan one. Sadly, the democrats impeachment inquiry has been flawed and partisan from day one. Heres the finding of a New Washington post and abc news poll americans locked in partisan stalemate on removing trump from office. As you can see, overall, theres a more or less an even divide for and against and what people think about impeachment is very closely connected to which party they support. That means every representative in congress is taking a position by which theyll be judged. For example, the democrat Elissa Slotkin represents a district in michigan. It was a republican stronghold until but she won there in last years midterms. Here she is explaining her decision to back impeachment. He gave the word to his administration to not produce any documents, to not respond to any subpoenas and to not appear. That is the president contravening the houses role and responsibility for the impeachment process and ill be voting yes on the obstruction of congress. Gary odonoghue, washington. Looking at that letter, does not look like it was edited by anyone else. I am slightly speechless about it but i shouldnt be and we know how the president talks in this how he talks. It is like you couldve rolled up the last, seven or eight weeks into one document and then just put it right out there and that is what youve got here. It is extraordinary. I have not tried to count the adjectives but it is groaning with adjectives. Three or four adjectives for every sentence. It is full of alliteration and exclamation marks and its all over the place and from exposition of his case to insults to hyperbole and in that crowning moment we see the comparison to the way he has been treated by the people who were burned at the stake during the salem witch trials and the witchcraft to be dumped in pounds to see if they would be able to survive or not, it is quite extraordinary but as shown you, putting it this way, the impeachment has got under his skin a bit. And is this less a letter to nancy pelosi or a letter to his supporters saying look, you have to be with me through this process . think that is right. If you wanted to hand over six pages of talking points to every republican voter and supportive for the next 12 months, this would be a decent place to start. There is a list, more than 30 of what the president was talking about his achievements in the middle of all of this defensive case on impeachment itself. All sorts of things ranging from unemployment rates, the economy to more issues. It is quite an extraordinary document and i do feel at some point oi document and i do feel at some point or other, a decision was made to sit down and do this and i am quite speechless at it. It is an extraordinary historic document. This is quite a letter and you can find it on the bbc news website. In his victory speech last week borisjohnson said he thought everyone deserved a break from brexit. But were not going to get one just yet. Today the Prime Minister announced his brexit bill confirming the withdrawal deal with the eu will also make it illegalfor the Uk Parliament to extend the brexit transiaiton beyond the end of 2020. The plan is for the transition period is start the moment brexit happens at the end of january. It ends in december 2020. That means uk and eu negotiators have less than 12 months to work out a trade deal trade deals normally take longer than that. Which means the possibiluty of a no deal brexit returns. Heres some reaction from the eu. If he thought the first three issues were complicated and the withdrawal if we thought the first three issues were complicated and the Withdrawal Agreement, and they were, i think the next phase has an added layer of complexity because it will cover just about everything else. Every industry, including security, pharmaceuticals, food, you name it and what we will be talking about then is the detail. Borisjohnson ha slong argued the eu responds to hard deadlines. Heres his message today. You aint seen nothing yet, folks. Were going to work even harder because people have a high level of expectation and we must deliver for them. The eus chief negotiator Michel Barnier has previously expressed skepticism about getting a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement injust 11 months. Today he said we will do the maximum. So both sides say theyll try. One possible outcome is a limited agreement in 2020 with a commitment for a more complex agreement down the track. Heres Damian Grammaticas in brussels. The president of the european commission, ursula von der leyen, she has said that she favours an approach that will be a step by step approach to try and negotiate a limited range of things first and that deal with the real basics, trading goods, fair competition. Its worth noting that in practice this change to the law doesnt necessarily rule out an extention to the transition period. Borisjohnson has a large majority in parliament so he could easily change the law preventing him from doing so. Interesting to look at the markets on this. Bbc economics editor faisal islam heres a graph showing the pound against the us dollar. You can see clearly the rise in the pound straight after the election, and the drop off today. So not for the first time, borisjohnson is taking a risk. Heres naomi grimleys assessment of it. In order to get it done in a timeframe which people like michel like Michel Barnier think is possible, it may mean that borisjohnson as to cave in on certain things. This particularly when it comes to aligning the uk economy with the eu on labour laws or environmental laws or, allowing the eu access to uk fishing waters. So, there might be a bit like what you sow the Withdrawal Agreement, there might be a case where borisjohnson may be conceding things, even though his big headline will be that hes doing it quickly. Bizarre involving italys top football league, serie a. It launched anti Racism Campaign with artwork. Thats right they chose to tackle racism with pictures of monkeys. Its hard to imagine the meeting where that was signed off. The artist responsible for this says its fair to say that arguments not cutting through. Bear in mind monkey chants are one of the most comment forms of racism at football matches. The european anti Discrimination Group fare says serie a insist theyre fighting the culture of racism with works like this. But theres been a lot lot more criticism. Heres the artist responding. This reaction for me, from my point of view shows how, you know, the mind is twisted by all the things that are happening right now. Because a pure mind, a pure heart, without any, i dont know the word in english, but a pure heart can see this campaign as a really huge step against racism because its really brave. Next this is the british journalist musa 0kwonga whos written extensively about racism in sport. He refers to his stubbornness and i wondered if there were certain obstacles or objections raised were he thought, im going to plough ahead and that right there is a problem because some people think that when you make racist art, you have to want to be a racist. He clearly is not someone who dislikes black people. The problem is that sometimes even though you have good intentions, they can have racist outcomes and unfortunately, this art is a racist outcome. Italian football clubs arent impressed either. Interesting coming from that club. Its striker Romelu Lukaku says cagliari fans made monkey noises at him during a game in september. More recently, brescia striker Mario Balotelli had to be persuaded not to walk off the pitch when faced with monkey chants. Here in the uk, Manchester City has vowed to take action against a fan who appeared to make monkey gestures at fred of manchester united. Heres more from musa 0kwonga. It isa it is a huge problem because it extends into society and what i would like to say is i like to hear from the directors of these football clubs, the directors of these clubs, many of them are white coming out in sitting the they celebrated in the plot, it should be far more widespread for the administration of this club say that theres proper consultation and let us support our players not of the workers in the workplace have to answer for the workplace have to answer for the work conditions. Theyre too busy playing world class football they should not be able to sort out the safety of their work conditions. The pope has ended the rule of pon ti fical secrecy this obliged anyone bringing accusations of priests sexually abusing children to keep quiet about the details. The vatican used to say the rule was meant to protect the privacy of victims and he reputations of the accused. But critics said it was preventing cooperation with police officers. Mark lowen has more. It has been criticised for enabling sex abuse and discouraging those people who were victims of it from actually reporting it. So pope francis is done today is that he abolished the use of it in terms of accusations, trials and decisions regarding sex abuse and he is also raising the definition of a minor in child pornography images from 14 to 18 to child pornography images from 1a to 18 to try and clamp down on clerics accused of possessing these images. This comes on top of an earlier move by the pope to compel members of the clergy who were aware of abuse or cover ups to actually report it. This is all an attempt by pope francis to tackle perhaps the greatest crisis facing the catholic church, the sex abuse. He has been criticised by some for not tackling it quickly enough, for not bringing in laws that are strengthened to make stringent stringent enough. But finally an attempt to come to terms and tackle this crisis in these crimes and the vatican will be hoping that this shows that they are serious about coming to terms with the dark underbelly of the catholic church. Stay with us on 0utside source still to come. Scientists say experiments on mice show its not true that artificial light from screens is keeping people awake at night. A review of the record low rate of Rape Convictions has found a Justice System close to breaking point because of cuts. The Crown Prosecution Service inspectorate says a damning number of cases are lost during what it describes as under resourced police investigations. Our Home Affairs Correspondent june kelly explained the findings of the report in more detail. While there were so many allegations in england of wells, many ended in convictions. The Campaign Group says the crown prosecution is adopting what he calls a bookmakers approach when it comes to mounting prosecutions and only going for cases with their more certain of getting a conviction. The cps is a lwa ys getting a conviction. The cps is always denied this and there report vindicates cps and what this report shows and what it has found is that there are a few cases being referred to by the police and also the police are taking longer to carry out investigations. This is 0utside source live from the bbc newsroom. 0ur lead is . 0n the eve of the Impeachment VotePresident Trump writes an extraordinary letter accusing the democrats of declaring war on american democracy. Police and protesters have clashed in paris at a demonstration against government plans for pension reforms. The protests and strikes have been continuing for nearly two weeks. The plans would see the average person expected to work till 64 rather than 62 to claim a full pension. World Service Europe a court in pakistan has sentenced the former president Pervez Musharraf to death for high treason. But general musharraf has been living in dubai for several years and was sentenced in absentia. The charges relate to his decision to suspend pakistans constitution and impose emergency rule in two thousand and seven. Bbc pashto a six year old cat has become an internet superstar as the first in italy to receive two prosthetic hind legs following a serious road accident. Vito lost his legs in an accident in milan. Hes now wandering about his home again. Lets start with the growing problems at boeing. The biggest impact will be at the main factory in renton in Washington State that employs 12,000 people directly. There will also be an impact at suppliers in the local area. But boeing is also the largest Us Manufacturing exporter and economists are predicting a 0. 6 hit to the countrys Economic Growth in the first three months of next year. The democratic congressman Tom Malinowski sits on the us houses Transportation Committee and has spoken to the bbc. Isa is a huge blow to the company and it isa is a huge blow to the company and it is a cautionary tale. They spent many years lobbying in washington for these safety regulations and the result is that people died in the company itself is taking a huge economic hit. I think it is a lesson to multinational corporations that sometimes it does not pay to get the government off your back. You think youre going to make things easier for yourself, you end up making things much harder. They wanted to be able to get these 737 max jets up and flying again by the end of this year. That has not happened and regulate as the United States and made it clear that they are not going to be able to adhere to this timetable and that is why we are who we are. Working very closely, when you get these planes up closely, when you get these planes up and flying again, that said, if youre looking at some the airlines we re youre looking at some the airlines were there doing, American Airlines and southwest airlines, two big carriers in the United States have 110w carriers in the United States have now delayed when theyre going to put the 737 max jets into the rotation and well into april. So thatis rotation and well into april. So that is a full year and more since the initial grounding of that fleet. Nothing to do with boeing come but this is very close to a mountain and you have been to visit that mountain and tell us why. Rare earth. These metals that you find in everyday items like cell phones and all kinds of technologies. Rare earth is a really big and china provides many that we see in the us. But one American Company believes that it may have found the answer. Here in the far west of texas, since a mountain that is a big stake in the power play between the us and china. What you see in front of us. Geologist and securing the mining rights to the mountain that he believes is the big one. Basically it is something you work for your whole career. These are large amounts of minerals known as rare earths. Crucial elements for technological gadgets and military weapons. Right here is the rock. This amber mountain could be worth 8 billion. So this is going to make you millions . That is it. Fuelling his confidence is the Us Government. The Trump Administration says they wa nt to the Trump Administration says they want to boost Domestic Production of rare earths. Military Technology WithoutRare Earth Technology would be about the same as it was in the mid 605. So we would be dealing with a Chinese Military in the 21st century and we would be in the mid 605. If it pays off, it can make his company very rich. It could also solve a National Security issue for the United States. But mining is a very dirty and ri5ky the United States. But mining is a very dirty and risky business. For 110w very dirty and risky business. For now the us only has this one rare earth mind. But with no domestic processing facilities. These rocks are still being sent to china to get the minerals out. A geological 5cienti5t the minerals out. A geological scientist and a board member of texas mineral resources. In his lab he has five or may be the secret to getting the rare earths out of the rocks both cheaply and easily. No one rocks both cheaply and easily. No one nowhere