this is bbc news. i'm lucy grey. the giant chinese balloon that had been floating over the united states has been shot down by an american fighterjet off the coast of south carolina. the balloon, which the us says was being used to spy on military sites appeared to plummet straight into the sea. china continues to insist it was a stray civilian weather observation airship. david willis is our correspondent in washington. officials here are saying that this chinese balloon was brought down about six miles off the coast of south carolina

by a single missile fired by a us fighterjet. now, president biden had apparently given permission for such a strike on wednesday, that is a day before the actual presence of this balloon was made public. military officials decided to hold back for fear that it could spray debris down onto the mainland and hurt people on the ground below. then, today, as it was crossing the coast of south carolina, they closed local airports, they cleared all airspace and the order was given to fire. well, a short while ago, this is what president biden had to say about the operation. they successfully took it down, and i want to compliment our aviators who did it, and we will have more to report on this a little later. i told them to shoot it down. on wednesday? on wednesday. but the recommendation was...

they said to me, let's wait to the safest place to do it. the challenge now will be to retrieve equipment from that downed balloon and to try to find out if indeed it was on a spying mission or if it was just attracting meteorological information, as the chinese have alleged. the challenge, of course, is to retrieve that data and to decode it before all the equipment on board sinks to the bottom of the atlantic ocean. a short while ago, at a briefing, the pentagon said they thought this balloon was part of a fleet that had violated the sovereignty of countries across five continents, as they put it. a short time ago president biden was asked if he thought this operation was provocative, as far as the chinese were concerned, and he declined to comment. the pope, the archbishop of canterbury and the moderator of the church of scotland are on a historic three day visit to south sudan. they've called it a pilgrimage of peace — to a country where more than 400,000 people have been killed in violence since independence 12 years ago. our religion editor aleem maqbool is travelling with the papal party, and sent this report

from the capitaljuba. it's his 40th foreign trip as pope, but it's a visit like no other he's ever had before. he's previously postponed this because of ill health and mobility issues, but was always clear, in spite of a reduced international schedule, there was one country he was sure to go — south sudan. but what makes this visit different is that for the first time on a foreign trip, he's accompanied by the leaders of other global christian denominations. the moderator of the church of scotland and the archbishop of canterbury are injuba, too. "at last, i am here," said pope francis told a crowd of displaced people, "together with my brothers on this pilgrimage of peace." since independence in 2011, south sudan slipped quickly into conflict. it's along tribal and not religious lines,

but the leaders are mainly christian — catholic, anglican, and presbyterian. back in 2019, in one of the most powerful moments of his papacy, pope francis kissed the feet of the south sudanese rivals at the end of a meeting at the vatican. they promised to work for lasting peace, but little changed. so the religious leaders came here. does the same thing happen — you make a dramatic gesture and you go away, and things don't move forward? dramatic gestures are to kick open doors, to create momentum. they don't solve problems. what they do is they may unstick stuck situations, and then they have to be followed up. tonight, the three

christian leaders held a cross—denominational prayer service. it's been a remarkable coming together of churches and has brought somejoy. that's not to say many south sudanese are confident it will lead to real change. aleem maqbool, bbc news, injuba. detectives searching for nicola bulley, who disappeared during a dog walk in lancashire more than a week ago, say they want to speak to a woman who was seen pushing a pram on the morning the mother of two was last seen, along the riverbank in st michael's on wyre. police have released this image of the woman they believe was walking along the same path — they're urging her to get in touch as a potential witness. police say they are working on the theory that the 45—year—old fell into the river. but friends of nicola have urged detectives to keep

an open mind as our reporter juliet philipps reports. the search for mum of two nicola bulley continues, eight days after she went missing. police yesterday said after extensive investigation, they're working on the hypothesis that nicola fell into the river — a theory nicola's friends and family have today questioned. as far as i'm aware, there has been no evidence found in the water that would point to the fact that nikki was in the water or had ever been in the water. you're not going to give up trying to find nicola, are you? no. we can't. we are continuing as we have been all week. our hope is not gone and we will keep going. nicola was last seen eight days ago, walking her dog not farfrom here. not long later, her phone was found on the bench just behind me, still logged into a work call. her dog was found running off the lead. nicola was nowhere to be seen. police say there's around a ten—minute window where her movements are unaccounted for. the search for nicola has involved police, mountain rescue teams and divers, as well as hundreds

of people from the local community and further afield. well, i've been listening to the news of nicola's disappearance for a week and the opportunity came along today — my neighbours and i said, "let's go and see "if we can help in any way." we've seen lots of search parties and people wanting to get out and help, and it's great that the community wants to come together and try and find out what's happened to nikki. police are continuing to appeal for dashcam footage from last friday morning. their search for nicola bulley continues. juliet phillips, bbc news, st michael's on wyre. now on bbc news, .mol rajan visits kenya, where bill gates is supporting local farms and hospitals through his foundation. gates talks about wealth and recent conspiracies and controversies. i'm in kenya for a rare interview with the all—american entrepreneur and titan of technology, bill gates. for decades, bill gates

was the richest man on earth, a tech geek whose zeal and work ethic made him the very face of american computing and capitalism. then he decided to give his money away. he's donated tens of billions to fighting for global causes. he's hyper rational, but behind those glasses are 67 years of emotion and experience. i want to access that. i want to find out what motivates him, why conspiracy theorists are so obsessed with him, and at what cost all that power, influence and wealth have come. i'm touring farms and hospitals in the remote region of kathonzweni in kenya, with the founder of microsoft. ok, so you put it in here.

why are you feeding some chickens? even chickens have to eat. i want to find out how he's getting on in his new full—time vocation as a philanthropist, and ask him some of the tough and personal questions that follow him around the world. and i've managed to carve some time out of his meticulous minute—by—minute schedule. through the bill and melinda gates foundation, which he set up with his former wife, gates has pledged to give away most of the billions of dollars that he made at microsoft to solve what he feels are the biggest problems facing our species — hunger, disease and climate change. did you come to philanthropy in a kind of eureka moment, where you thought, "right, this is what i'm going to do. "it's a rational calculation. "my kids can't have all this money,

"so i should give it away and do it effectively." or did you, overtime, get exposed to thoughts and ideas that made you think, you know, "this is a good thing to do with my life." i knew that the wealth of microsoft was far more than i or my family would need. when melinda and i found out about how little was going into saving children's lives, which was kind of shocking to us, then we realised we should get going right away, and we started funding vaccines and work on malaria. and then later, i decided i would shift, er, my time also, and so in 2008, i left microsoft and became full—time in my foundation work. how do you decide what your priorities are? you know, a few hundred miles north—east from here, there's this huge issue in somalia, you know, dreadful drought. what do you do when someone from somalia says, "hey, come and see us." yeah. so our foundation, although we support some emergency relief, the place that we're very strong is the new tools. so better seeds, better systems to advise farmers using their cellphones,

digital money, so they're not paying bank fees and a lot in health, new vaccines.