welcome to bbc news. i'm maryam moshiri. our top stories: in the us election campaign, mayor pete buttigieg pulls out. it could be a boost forjoe biden's campaign. there are concerns the virus could have been circulating in the us for weeks. up to 1,500 people may be infected. turkey sends refugees to europe to try to force backing for its campaign in syria. and asia bibi, the pakistani christian sentenced to death for blasphemy, tells the bbc how she found faith in jail.

pete buttigieg has dropped out of the race to be the democratic candidate to take on president trump for the us presidency. the 38—year—old former mayor enjoyed a successful start to his campaign but it lost momentum in recent weeks. he narrowly won the iowa caucuses early last month and came in a strong second place in the new hampshire primary, but faltered badly in saturday's south carolina vote. he spoke to supporters a few minutes ago in south bend, indiana. —— south end. todayis today is a moment of truth. after a year of going everywhere, meeting everyone, defying every expectation, seeking every vote, the truth is the path has narrowed to a close, for our candidacy if not oui’ close, for our candidacy if not our cause stop the and another of those values is responsibility, and we have a

responsibility, and we have a responsibility to consider the effect of remaining in this race any further. our goal has a lwa ys race any further. our goal has always been to help unify americans to defeat donald trump and to win the era for oui’ trump and to win the era for our values. applause. north america correspondent peter bowesjoins me now. peter, a surprise here really. ahead of super tuesday, that's unusual. it's unusual but i think he is simply being practical. looking at the numbers, he did not do well in south carolina. 14 states across the country go to the polls on tuesday, two of the big ones, california and texas, and he and his people have clearly figured out it's perhaps unlikely that he will win over bernie sanders orjoe biden in any of those states. and for all he did well in the iowa caucuses, for all he did well in new hampshire, he doesn't ca path ultimately to being the nominee for the

democratic party. that's essentially what he indicated in his speech, that the path to victory doesn't seem to be within his grasp. so what does it mean for the race now to ta ke it mean for the race now to take on donald trump? interestingly he said... one of the phrases he used was there was too much at stake to stick to the sidelines, suggesting that he is still going to play a role in american politics. interestingly he did not say he was supporting any of the other candidates. may be that will come at a later stage. what it means probably in terms of votes is joe biden means probably in terms of votes isjoe biden is likely to gain because he and pete buttigieg essentially occupy the same political ground in the same political ground in the centre of the democratic party, the great swathes of the party who believe in terms of policy similar things to joe biden and pete beaded edge,

especially when it applies to big issues like healthcare —— pete buttigieg. die biden could be the big winner over bony sanders, who looks like he will do well on super tuesday —— bernie sanders —— joe do well on super tuesday —— bernie sanders ——joe biden. looks like it is building quite slowly to a race between two or three of the key characters. the clue is in the name, it is super tuesday. what does that mean for the democratic race for the presidency? it is called super tuesday for a good reason, there are many, many delegates at stake. california has in itself a quarter of all of the delegates necessary for any of these candidates to meet the threshold to be the nominee for the democrats, so it's all down to the maths on tuesday. it's not a winner takes all system, it's a proportional system, it's a proportional system, so those democrats in the big states like texas and california will be divided between the continuing candidates and the race is simply onto ghana as many as possible —— simply on to garner

as many as possible. peter, thank you very much. scientists in the united states say the covid—i9 virus may have been spreading undetected in washington state for the last six weeks, infecting up to 1,500 people. over the weekend, a man in his 50s from the north—western state became the first confirmed fatality from the virus in the us. in the last few minutes, we've heard from south korea that nearly 500 new coronavirus cases have said the total number of those affected by the virus in south korea has gone past 4000. professor peter hotez is dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor college of medicine. hejoins me now from houston, texas. thank you so much forjoining us, peter hotez. let me start by asking you about the virus itself because the key thing is many of the public are getting infected but health workers becoming infected has become a huge worry for people like you?

yes, absolutely and thanks for having me on today. one of the things we noticed it coming out of wuhan, the chinese reported that in the epidemic in wuhan there were more than 1000 healthcare workers infected, with six deaths, and about 16%, about 1a.8%, were seriously ill and many required icu admission so and many required icu admission so that was a wake—up call that oui’ so that was a wake—up call that our healthcare workforce is highly to this virus and infection. it occurred to us here in the united states, and of course locally, that things good full down quickly if large numbers of the healthcare workforce went down and couldn't fight this infection, and the snowball effect of it becoming both demoralising and if healthcare workers feel they're not being adequately protected... we are worried things could break down and collapsed very quickly, and

we've been writing and speaking about this for the last couple of days and then, of course, right on cue, within 2a hours of this, we've had two healthcare workers in california now infected according to reports. this is going to be an area of extreme vulnerability here in the united states and i would imagine globally, you can imagine globally, you can imagine in the middle east or africa, where healthcare workers don't have adequate personal protective equipment, what we call ppe, i think this is going to become a major issue going forward. you've personally been working towards a vaccine, what are your views on the vaccine? do you think we are 18 months away from one or is it more complicated than that? i think it's really hard to predict. there's a lot of new, exciting technologies out there for vaccines, rna vaccines, exciting technologies out there forvaccines, rna vaccines, dna vaccines, where using a more conventional protein approach

and a number of these strategies are being supported bya strategies are being supported by a new international global fund vaccines partly based in london called sepi, that's the exciting part, but the news is we have to do a lot of safety testing. typically this can require a year or two at least to show that the vaccine is both safe and effective. we also know with coronavirus vaccines and other respiratory vaccines, there's this paradoxical what we call immune enhancement where the vaccine can actually make things worse. this was a phenomenon discovered with a respiratory virus vaccine in the 60s, and we saw in laboratory animals with experimental vaccines after the original sars came out in 2003, that's a long way off saying this is not going to go fast and safety testing can't be compromised, it's very ha rd to can't be compromised, it's very hard to compress timeline, so we're seeing a lot of biotechs

and mid—sized biotechnology pharmaceutical companies promising we'll have a vaccine in weeks. you can forget it, because of the immune enhancement phenomenon on we are looking at a least a year away before we have a vaccine, and i'm guessing probably longer. let me know honestly, how worried are you about the new coronavirus? it's clearly worrisome. we saw the devastation this virus caused in wuhan, particularly amongst selected age groups, individuals over the age of 60 are especially vulnerable, pretty high mortality rates, those with high, chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension, and obviously our healthcare workforce. we are seeing case fatality rates of 296 seeing case fatality rates of 2% overall. many saying that's probably not the case, there's probably not the case, there's probably a lot of people with low grade infection is that we are missing. then the world

health organization gave us a very chilling statement last week saying we think the 2% fatality rate is real. the reason that significant is it is so highly contagious. on average a single individual will infect three or four people, so it's two or three times more containjust people, so it's two or three times more contain just than seasonal flu and as many as ten times more serious in terms of fatalities than seasonal flu, so fatalities than seasonal flu, so we'll have our hands full. this is quite a serious pathogen and that's why the world health organization and the director—general, doctor tetros, appropriately declared an emergency of international concern a few weeks ago, especially worried about the countries that don't have the capacity to manage complex epidemics or public health crises. in many respects the public health emergency was not declared so much for the uk or the usa, although we're certainly concerned, but you

can imagine as this virus goes into sub—saharan africa, we've got 1—3 million chinese living there now, the belt and road initiative in the middle east, you get the idea. thanks for coming on the programme. thank you for having me. greece says it has stopped almost 10,000 migrants crossing over its land borderfrom turkey, which is struggling to deal with the number of people fleeing syria's civil war. turkey's president has said he will break his country's deal with brussels prevent migrants entering the eu unless he gets greater support for his intervention in syria. orla guerin reports from pazarkule on the border between turkey and greece. at first light, they joined the migrant trail from turkey. heading for the river meric, all that separates them from europe. this group manages to cross, leaping onto greek soil. just a trickle here,

not a flood. and greece wants to keep it that way. greece doesn't want a repeat of 2015. caught up in the chaos this afternoon, reza, an iranian we met who hopes to meet london. there pushing us by water. teargas —— they are. it's not fair. and the young have been in the firing line, like 1—year—old yeshar, whose family is from afghanistan. the greeks a shot at us and threw tear gas at him, says his father, ziman, he could have died. but for turkey, which has been sheltering almost 4 million syrians, the refugees are now human bargaining chips being used to put pressure on europe.

well, families are still arriving here and there not coming by accident, there being encouraged to travel by the turkish authorities led to believe they can enter europe. instead they are stuck here with no way to cross into greece and they and their children are having to camp out in the cold. and this is what awaits them now at the border, awaits them now at the border, a battleground. greece says it won't allow a referral. turkey says it is overwhelmed by refugees. it is now battling the assad regime and it is determined that europe will share the fallout. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: after the us—taliban agreement, the qatari mediator tells us that outside countries could still wreck the chances for peace in afghanistan.

first, the plates slid gently off the restaurant tables. then suddenly, the tables, the chairs and people crashed sideways and downwards, and it was just a matter of seconds as the ferry lurched onto her side. the hydrogen bomb. on a remote pacific atoll, the americans had successfully tested a weapon whose explosive force dwarfed that of the bomb dropped on hiroshima. i had heard the news earlier, and so my heart went bang, bang, bang! the constitutional rights of these marchers are their rights as citizens of the united states, and they should be protected even in the right to test them out, so that they don't get their heads broken and are sent to hospital. this religious controversy — i know you don't want to say too much about it — but does it worry you that it's going to boil up when you get to the states? well, it worries me, yes, but i hope everything will be all right in the end, as they say.

this is bbc news, the latest headlines: the democratic party presidential contender, pete buttigieg, is pulling out of the white house race. it should boost joe biden's chances. the afghan government has started picking over the details of the deal signed by the taliban and the us on saturday. the historic deal will see thousands of american troops leave afghanistan in return for commitments from the taliban — the focus is now on how the agreement will be implemented and if promises will be kept. our chief international correspondent lyse doucet has this report. the first win for afghans, a week of relative calm. what was called a reduction in violence before the signing of a deal.

what happens now? the agreement initialled on saturday isn't clear on this, at least not in the public document. but in diehard, in cobble, they will keep monitoring it. i asked the qatar special envoy, will this partial truths continue?” qatar special envoy, will this partial truths continue? i hope it will continue. the parties and the people of afghanistan saw the result of the reduction in violence, how many lives we saved, they saved. and i think they have moral, religious and legal obligations. and if they don't respect them? again, we hope that... hope is not a strategy as the pentagon likes to say. we hope that they respect there, their obligations in accordance with the agreement. but, i'm sure if there is a violation of

one—sided, the other side has the right to self defence to act accordingly but again, this is not a dissolution. what the taliban want to see next is a prisoner release. it also is up to 5000 of them and will be freed. but in kabul made it clear, present a clear that it's up—to—date government and the taliban are refusing to talk to them. we need to engage with them to have proper discussions about the way forward. and i think they should compromise and i hope the parties will move forward. this is the beginning of the talks. they should start today. and i hope we can do something in the coming days. if you had to choose one thing that worries you that could cause this deal to unravel, what would it be? the spoilers. the spoilers is the major obstacle in the past. i'm afraid it may

be, this obstacle may remain but i hope with this momentum and with the pressure from a certain major powers, these spoilers should back off. the spoilers should back off. the spoilers are in afghanistan or a neighbouring countries? mostly i would say in neighbouring countries. pakistan, iran. i'm not going to comment on this. you can ask the taliban, you can ask the afg ha ns the taliban, you can ask the afghans and they will tell you. afghans and they will tell you. a lasting ceasefire, a peace deal, around the agenda for afg ha n deal, around the agenda for afghan talks. they expected to start this month if all goes to plan. —— they are. israelis go to the polls on monday for the third election in less than a year, to try to break the country's political deadlock. a key stumbling block to forming a governing coalition has been corruption charges against prime minister benjamin netanyahu who's due

to stand trial this month. our middle east editor jeremy bowen sent this report. on the sea of galilee, the bible says jewish fishermen who followed jesus used to debate the future. modern israeli fishermen at election time still do. on this boat, prime minister binyamin netanyahu's supporters, led by the skipper menachim lev. he values the bounty from the lake and the strength he sees in netanyahu. he thinks his father, who survived auschwitz, would have approved. he is from here, he is from the holocaust. and my father tell me one thing — don't trust nobody in your life, trust only yourself and do everything that is good for you. the crew unites around fish, not politics. this man is voting for

the centre—left opposition, worried that the cost—of—living is pricing young israelis out of their future. a lot of young people want to move from israel. it is something that is happening. but hopefully something will be better, i don't know. amid the electoral pyrotechnics, retired general benny gantz, the opposition leader, has had to deny claims from the netanyahu camp that he made sex videos. netanyahu, he says, is trying to lie and cheat his way to victory. the prime minister is claiming credit for donald trump's so—called deal of century — an attempt to end the conflict on israel's terms. it allows israel, in defiance of international law, to annex settlements on land palestinians want for a state. this is shilo, where they're building a new school. the settlers want two election victories this year — binyamin netanyahu and trump. it is very important

for us, both elections, and we are engaged in all sorts of personalities and organisations and groups to assure both here and there that as much as possible, we get the people in office that we want. nearby, palestinians were on a hilltop they believe settlers might grab. the old issues don't go away. and, as ever, it's come down to control of the land — that's always been at the centre of the conflict, a century ago and today. by morning, israeli forces were driving palestinians off the hill. the last real chance of a negotiated peace was collapsing when these young men were babies. the big changes — political and diplomatic and especially president trump's out and out support for the israeli government — is sharpening the conflict on the ground

and you can see it in places like this. conflict is normal for yet another generation — the election won't change that. jeremy bowen, bbc news, on the west bank. asia bibi, the pakistani christian woman who spent years on death row after being convicted of blasphemy, has said she hopes to be able to return to pakistan one day. she was in paris for the release of her memoir, finally free, in which she recounts her time in jail and her brutal treatment by guards. in the second part of an interview with the bbc‘s mishal husain, ms bibi says herfaith helped her through the ordeal. nearly ten yea rs nearly ten years ago, a christian woman from pakistan's punjab province was sentenced to death for blasphemy. it was a case that sparked international attention and outrage. even after asia bibi was finally acquitted by pakistan's highest court, huge protests prevented her

immediate release. she now has a new life and here in paris, she has been telling me her story. translation: she has been telling me her story. translationzlj she has been telling me her story. translation: i suffered a lot inside the jail. i cannot even tell you what happened to me. i lived through all of this misery but god gave me patience andi misery but god gave me patience and i got a lot of strength. you cannot imagine but i have witnessed miracles. it is difficult for you to talk about because you write in the book about how you were held by the neck and how difficult that time was for you. what was it that gave you hope in this period? translation: my strength came from my faith and i learnt that you should be courageous and you should be strong in your faith. courageous and you should be strong in yourfaith. and courageous and you should be strong in your faith. and you should never lose your faith. after everything you have been through, how would you describe your emotions today? do you feel bitterness, anger? translation: are not angry at

all. iforgiven translation: are not angry at all. i forgiven everyone from my heart. and there is no ha rd ness my heart. and there is no hardness in me, there is patience in me because i learned how to be patient after having to leave my children behind. it surprises me even. however i learnt to be so patient? how can any mother be patient? how can any mother be patient after leaving her children? but god may be patient and i commented two —— conquered the hardships faced my way. there are people in jail facing my way. there are people in jailfacing blasphemy my way. there are people in jail facing blasphemy charges today, people like this couple. what would you say to them? translation: i can give them hope. i am translation: i can give them hope. iam now translation: i can give them hope. i am now free, translation: i can give them hope. iam now free, i'm outside stop i want to request all media that they should work for these people as well so that she is also free and i can tell her that there will be a day when she will also be free. asia bibi's long ordeal is now

over but the issue of blasphemy in pakistan is not. there are still christians and muslims being targeted by the law today. the question is, whether the country will take action to prevent abuses and to protect its citizens whatever the religion. we put allegations about misuse of blasphemy laws to the authorities in pakistan. they said pakistan has taken considerable steps to prevent its possible misuse and constantly reviews its implementation. the cases of blasphemy are brought before the court and follow due process of the law. the acquittal of asia bibi is a testimony of pakistan's resolve to protect its citizens as per its constitution. about the allegations of abuse in prison, they responded: torture, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment to any prisoner is not allowed in the prisons of pakistan. you can reach me on twitter —

i'm @bbcmaryam. thank you so much for your company. goodbye. with rivers running high and many a field still under water, we could do with a little bit of better revenues and to a certain degree, will get that this week. no, not going be com pletely this week. no, not going be completely dry but certainly compared with recent weeks, won't be anywhere near a wet and windy. the jetstream won't be anywhere near a wet and windy. thejetstream is taking a more southerly trapper what that does mean is most likely, so suddenly chill and by night with us more likely. that's how we start the monday morning commute with more in the way of frost and some ice around with showers within often wet overnight not quite as costly to southern counties of england. outbreaks of rain and a bit of sleet and snow in the morning. clearing away from east anglia and the south is

quite quickly but then brightening up. showers in the west, this agreement, how and sleet and snow. if you're number two began but more coming out other member not as many as we saw for the weekend. my many as we saw for the weekend. my view on monday will spend the day completely dry or if not, just one or two showers passing away. the damages around seven to 10 degrees at their highest. winds will overwhelm a light going to feel quite as cold in the afternoon as it has done but the breeze will be picking up across the north—west later. gail's free time for monday night into tuesday. more on the way of showers starting to develop through the night and they will push their way eastwards. a bit of snow across parts of scotla nd of snow across parts of scotland that even the hills of northern ireland and northern england later on. damages will be close to freezing in many areas so be close to freezing in many areas so frost and ice the greatest risk. the converse of the weather first thing on tuesday morning in the west. the set up for tuesday, that weather front taking showers is with initially. more rain bearing weather fronts diverted down towards france and iberia thinks about southerly tracking jetstrea m. thinks about southerly tracking jetstream. there could be close

enough to produce some rain over the southernmost counties of england and over the channel islands. more showers around but morning. a wintry mix. basil clear away and is back to sunshine and showers for many into the afternoon. showers mainly across and western areas. that which is similar to those on monday. then, as we head into the middle part of the week, it looks like many will still say mostly dry with showers around here and there. the chance of rain closer to the south coast on wednesday but overall, were continuing with that largely dry story. changes a little swazi and the way, thursday night to friday, we will see a weather front put its way across. bringing a of rain briefly. showers following on its wake and then a chance of some more wet and windy weather towards the end of the week and into the next weekend. by week and into the next weekend. by and large, still the rivers responding to the rain we saw the last few days and was some rain forecast towards the of the week, never to date too far away from the flood warnings and they are there for you online.

this is bbc news, the headlines pete buttigieg, the first openly gay us presidential candidate, is to end his bid for the white house. his decision to drop out comes just ahead of what's known as super tuesday, when 1a states hold primaries. his withdrawal is likely to benefit the campaign ofjoe biden. scientists in the united states say the covid—19 virus may have been spreading undetected in washington state for the last six weeks, infecting up to 1,500 people. a state of emergency has been declared. one man is now confirmed to have died from the virus in the us. several thousand migrants are demanding to be allowed to cross into greece after turkey announced it would no longer stop people trying to enter the european union. turkey is seeking western support for its operations in syria. an extraordinary meeting of eu foreign ministers has been called at athens' request.

now on bbc news, the week in parliament.