this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm samantha simmonds. hope and despair in turkey and syria, as the painstaking search for survivors continues, after the earthquakes. in the second and the third day after the earthquake they are finding a lot of people. hardly finding anyone now, almost no one. us fighterjets shoot down an unidentified object over alaska. the pentagon says president biden, gave the order, to seek and destroy. the object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. us northern command is beginning recovery efforts now. sports ministers from thirty—five countries meet online to discuss

whether athletes from russia and belarus should participate in next year's olympic games. and — could the party be over for visitors to amsterdam? we'll explain why the city is clamping down on its reputation for sex, drink and drugs. hello and welcome to audiences in the uk and around the world. fears are growing for the hundreds of thousands of people in turkey and syria in need after monday's devastating earthquakes. living in makeshift shelters and cars in freezing conditions, there are warnings that aid is not reaching areas fast enough. more than 23,000 people are now known to have died. syrian state media says the government has approved international aid delivery to rebel—held areas in cooperation with the help of the un, syrian red crescent

and international red cross. 0ur correspondent quentin somerville has been to antakya, a city which has seen some of the worst devastation in all of the country. he's been with rescue teams who've been working round the clock, but who now fear that time is running out, to find people alive under the rubble. in the darkest hours, a single light shines brightest. in antakya's hour of need, this man... he speaks in turkish. ..erdal, has emerged as a saviour. he'll climb where others won't dare, deep inside the ruins of this shattered city. anything to save a life. it's been hours since anyone was found here, but still they work late into the night.

an amateur mountaineer and professional writer, erdal has taken command here. someone or something is moving inside the building, but they can't reach them. they've tried looking in from the front, no success. they put a camera probe in. now they're going round the back of the building to see if they can find any sign of life. the floors are sandwiched tight. it's a treacherous space, but erdal�*s crew try to find a way inside. others have rallied to his courage. his team is now 100—strong. they've already saved dozens of people. so much risk, so much risk. but so much people wait us. how do you feel about what's happened to your country? armageddon. the bitter light of morning lays bare the ea rthquake�*s ruin. anta kya is destroyed. and down in amongst it, erdal and his men are still working. in the past five days, he's managed only a few hours sleep.

erdalfound two of narula's children. and even though it's been many days, narula can't believe his wife and other child aren't still alive. the building isjust across the street, but his wife and child can't be reached, even by erdal�*s team. translation: erdaltore himself apart for my two children. - went to places no—one would go. he saved my two children. relatives say they could hear something. if they is they smell dead bodies. we left you five, six hours ago. did you find anyone else is my? no. translation: _ find anyone else is my? no. translation: we - find anyone else is my? iirm translation: we couldn't find anyone else is my? iiru translation: we couldn't find anyone. 0nly translation: we couldn't find

anyone. only a doll, it's owner was dead. anyone. only a doll, it's owner was dead-— anyone. only a doll, it's owner was dead. ., ., , , , ., was dead. so, what happens now? i don't know- _ was dead. so, what happens now? i don't know. these _ was dead. so, what happens now? i don't know. these families - i don't know. these families are sensitive to some hoping people are alive under the rubble so we keep trying to work in places but we only find corpses. work in places but we only find corpses. tonight, the search goes on and still shining a light into the darkness is erdal. quentin sommerville, bbc news, antakya. getting access to the quake zone in syria is tough, but the bbc has language services right around the world, and our arabic team based in the country, now has some of the first international journalists in aleppo, with their access controlled by the government. the historic city was hit hard by the earthquakes, and our correspondent, assaf abboud, has sent us this report in arabic, and we've translated his words. translation: we are now in the shahar neighbourhood, one of the areas damaged

by the earthquake. aleppo is the closest city to the epicentre of the earthquake. until now, around 400 people have died in the city of aleppo. hundreds of injured remain in the rubble. in this area, rescue efforts are being supported by government forces in the search for the injured. they are also working on demolishing damaged buildings out of fear they might collapse at a later stage. around 60 buildings have collapsed, but there are around 400 others that are so damaged and at risk of collapse at any moment. reports say some 55,000 people have lost their homes, and they are now spread across different shelters in the city.

the death toll has surpassed 4,000 people in both government and rebel held areas, and over 7,000 people are injured or unaccounted for. in other news, the united states says it has shot down a "high altitude object" flying over the state of alaska. the white house said it was much smaller than the recently downed chinese balloon but was still the size of a small car, and could have posed a threat to commercial planes. 0ur north america correspondent nomia iqbal gave us this update. it was revealed by the white house spokesmanjohn kirby that around about 130 eastern time here in the us there is high altitude object was shot down. it was travelling at 40,000 feet, which was lower than the chinese by balloon, that was floating across america last week, it was smaller in size but we're being told...

they're not say it wasn't us by balloon but they're not saying either way at the moment. we're calling this an object because that's the best description we have right now. we do not know who owns it. whether it's state owned or corporate owned or privately owned, we just don't know. we don't know. state owned, we don't know if it's state owned. and we don't understand the full purpose. we don't have any information that would confirm a stated purpose of this object. after we were given details byjohn kirby there was another presser that was held by the pentagon. and patrick ryder gave a few more details about the incident. on february nine, north american aerospace command detected in object on ground radar further investigated and identified the object using fighter aircraft. the object was flying

at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. us northern command is the given recovery operations now. us northern command alaska command coordinated the operation with assistance from the alaska international guard, federalaviation administration and the federal bureau of investigation. we have no further details about the object at this time, including any description of its capability, purpose or origin. the object was about the size of a small car, not similar in size or shape to the high altitude surveillance balloon that was taken down off the coast of south carolina on february four. mr kirby emphasised it was mr biden who ordered it for doing that to happen. he said was out of an abundance of caution. we know there's been a huge political pressure on president biden, certainly by republicans who accuse him for being weak on china and not acting sooner because a spy balloon shot down to travel across much of america for more than a week.

but i want to add that john kirby did say in that briefing, he said he doesn't regret, sorry, the president does not regret the way he handled the first balloon. i've been speaking to matt kroenig, senior director at the scowcroft centre for strategy and security at the atlantic council and he's given me his take on the incident. we don't know what this was exactly yet. i think in terms of the biden administrations decision there is the old saying, fool me once shame on you you come up only twice shame on me. i think the biden administration after what was a political embarrassment in the united states for not taking sooner action against the chinese spy balloon last week decided to take early and decisive action to take down whatever this unidentified object was coming into us air space. is it pretty rare to have the shooting down of two objects in the skies over the united states in the space of a week?

extremely rare. i've been working in national security policies and can't remember an episode like this in the past 20 years. i think it does show that the united states and china are in a more contested era. unfortunately, i think these kinds of crises may be becoming the new normal. given that this all happened when the us secretary of state was supposed to be going to china for a visit, what do you think that says? we don't know anything about the zoo object about the new object being shot down by given the speculation around it and given the fact that the first one was shot down earlier in the week, what does that say about us— china relations right now, do you think? i think it shows that china is pretty brazen, it believes they can get away with quite a bit when it comes to challenging the united states and its allies and they

won't be serious consequences. and we don't quite know what the motivation was for the first balloon last week. i wouldn't be surprised if it was intended to be a poke in the eye in the united states before a diplomatic visit. we've seen that before when i was working for defence secretary gates in 2011, he made a high—profile visit to beijing and as soon as he touched down in china tested a new stealth fighter. welcome to beijing, here's a new powerful plane to contest america. it may have been intentional. i think the bottom line is this is going to be a contentious relationship for the foreseeable future. what do we know for sure about that balloon that was shot down last week was back we know for sure that it was a chinese spy balloon. the chinese said it was a weather balloon flown off course but the defence department and the state department have said it was a spy balloon, they have images of the equipment and they are trying to recover

the equipment, including antenna, for signal intelligence collecting and other things like that. some people said well, why would china do this? fairy have satellites, balloon seems so primitive. actually, balloons offer several advantages over satellite, they are cheaper, they can be retrieved, they can offer over target sites longer and get more detailed information. i think china is choosing a belt and suspenders approach to comes to collecting intelligence over us sites. here in northwest england, three people have been arrested on suspicion of violent disorder after a protest turned violent, outside a hotel providing refuge for asylum seekers on merseyside. videos posted on social media show crowds gathered near the suites hotel in knowsley and a police van on fire. merseyside police 0ur reporter nick garnett

is at teh scene in knowsley. tell us what's happened there tonight. around ten o'clock this evening a protest had been planned for about four days. it went rather out of control. the protest was because there had been complaints about people in the hotel harassing local children. and a group that has been named in various places as a right wing political group came down to protest outside the hotel. there are about 100 rooms in this hotel and it's being used as a hotel for people seeking asylum in great britain for a few months now. so when they came down and were protesting outside another group came up and there was a confrontation between the two. at that point there were some police officers here but not very many. a petrol bomb or some thing was thrown at this

police band behind us. we will have a look at it. it's been completely burnt out. you can see the amount of damage now. the fire service have been down to make sure it's all say. you can see the level of damage that's been done to it. there is also on the ground huge amounts of rocks and stones that have been thrown at police officers who were here in full riot gear. after a few hours and a lot more police officers coming in and police vans they managed to regain control and they disperse for them and now we've got a scene where it's fairly calm. we understand about a half—dozen people have been arrested. about a half-dozen people have been arrested.— been arrested. what are the olice been arrested. what are the police saying _ been arrested. what are the police saying how _ been arrested. what are the police saying how events - police saying how events unfolded and how it was managed?— unfolded and how it was manaaed? , ., ., managed? they are not saying very much _ managed? they are not saying very much at _ managed? they are not saying very much at all— managed? they are not saying very much at all at _ managed? they are not saying very much at all at the - managed? they are not saying i very much at all at the moment. they admit that they knew about the protest, they knew it was good happen. but they weren't expecting the confrontation between the two sides. they

reacted very quickly. police officers from across the merseyside region here in the northwest of england were moved in fairly quickly. they've now disperse. at one point the main motorway sections were all closed off. that's now been reopened. at a lot of the police have gone home. tensions in the area have dropped completely and things are back on an even keel here. but still, it's going to take some time to clear it up. it certainly _ time to clear it up. it certainly well. thank you for the update from merseyside. this is bbc news, the latest headlines... hope and despair in turkey and syria, as the painstaking search for survivors continues after the earthquakes. 0ur europe correspondent, nick beake, has been to visit the the town of pazarchik, in south eastern turkey, where families have been mourning their dead. wailing.

this was a day of funerals in pazarchik, one after another. a week ago, this was empty wasteland, now full of grief and sorrow. an imam says a brief prayer before moving to the next grieving family. this woman has just buried two relatives. her 33—year—old nephew, ayaan and her aunt, both crushed as they slept. when the children go to bed now, she tells us, they say, "mum, please wake me if an earthquake hits." we're all in a bad way, but the children are totally wrecked. in this place alone, they've dug more than 100 new graves. we've counted 28 that have been filled. the rest will soon be, too. but some of the mourners have been telling us that they've been getting phone calls

from friends and relatives who live in some of the most remote parts of the mountainside where other people have died, but their bodies can't be brought here to be buried because they're trapped by the snow. for survivors in the town at the heart of this disaster. life is as precarious as it gets. you can understand why few want to venture back inside their homes. and who could have survived this? well, this woman did with her son, escaping from the seventh floor. translation: the earthquake was never ending. _ my son was screaming. but somehow we managed to get down the stairs. when president erdogan visited her town yesterday, he said to have remarked the disaster was part of fate's plan. translation: fate? fate? there is no fate. 0urfate is in our own hands. we write our own destiny.

earthquakes don't kill people, but buildings do. tonight, we watched as mother and son were reunited with father who'd driven for three days to get here. a rare flicker ofjoy in a town where so many cannot smile. nick beake, bbc news, pazarchik. let's get some of the day's other news. president biden has been hosting brazilian president lula for the first time since brazil's tightly contested election in october. the talks today are focussing on safeguarding democracy, rejecting extremism and violence in politics, climate change, and lula's effort to re—engage with the global community. the british director, hugh hudson, best known for the film, chariots of fire, has died after a short illness. he was 86. he began his career making tv adverts in the 1960s, but his big screen directing debut, chariots of fire, won four oscars,

including best picture. to ukraine now — where russia launched over 50 missiles on friday — hitting several energy facilities and leaving millions without power. at least 17 missiles hit the southeastern city of zaporizhzhia. local officials say it was the heaviest attack since the start of the invasion. moldova has accused russia of firing missiles through its air space and has summoned moscow's ambassador. meanwhile, ukraine's president volodymir zelensky has told a summit of sports ministers that terrorists have no place at the olympic and urged russia to be banned from the paris games next year. the ioc has said banning athletes based on nationality could be discriminatrory, and has floated the idea of allowing athletes to compete as neutrals. here's president zelensky. ladies and gentlemen, sports community, each of us know what the olympic principles are.

terror and olympics are two opposites. they cannot be combined. representatives of a terrorist team appear at international sports competition or the olympic games. will it matter if they are without their national symbols? the mere presence of representatives of the terrorist state and their manifestation of violence and lawlessness. rob keeler is the director general of global athlete, a group that aims to help athletes gain a more represented voice in world sport — and he's been speaking to me about the issue. i think the ioc has totally lost the moral compass. time and time again they favour russia over anyone else.

we saw a doping scandal before rio where they allowed borussia to compete for that they continue to hold up to the beijing games. russia has been using sport as a due a political force for centuries. the fact that the ioc thinks they can come and compete in the neutral flag is out of touch and simply not in line with the values of human rights. their argument is that this would unite the entire world in peaceful competition. does sport have a part to play here in trying to forge some peaceful path? not at this point in time. we just recieved a personal letter of support from the president of ukraine for the ukrainian athletes. sport is a geopolitical force and you cannot separate the two. the fact that vladimir putin uses sport as a geopolitical mechanism to support his standing in his country, they cannot be separated. to think the ioc is going down that route is totally wrong. and the fact that we see time and time again the ioc favour

russia over any other country, there is simply something there that no one is seeing. the ioc needs to be on the right side of history and right now they are not. they have said they would stipulate that any person from russia or belarus who supports the war should continue to be banned from international competition. there you go again. the ioc putting athletes in a position in very difficult positions. if you are russian athlete and you don't support the war there is a lot of countries that will put you in jail. this is where protecting athletes, removing from the game and making sure that every other country can compete peacefully for that and it's time for russia to pay the price and set out these games. let's turn to amsterdam now — where the city is dealing with the problem of having too many tourists — coming for perhaps the wrong reasons. people have been allowed to buy and smoke cannabis there for many years — and the city also has a large sex—worker industry. but new laws are being brought in, to curtail

those activities — following pressure from local residents. 0ur correspondent in the netherlands —anna holligan — reports. this is the latest measure in a long—running effort to try to clean up amsterdam's raunchy reputation. the dutch have a liberal approach to soft drugs and a toleration policy that means coffee shops like this one can sell cannabis under strict conditions. one of those conditions is that coffee shops must not cause a nuisance, and the government has ordered them to stop attracting foreign drug users. from spring, smoking weed on the streets of the red light district will be outlawed. this man has a wall full of famous friends who visited. amsterdam has a very liberal image, a city where the people can be free and they can smoke cannabis, so that's not going to change overnight. many of his clientele come for more than just the cannabis. the flowers, the canals, there's tulips now, the cherry blossoms, just the people are so friendly. all of it. millions of tourists are drawn to the dutch capital every year. renowned for its relaxed rules,

the red light district is also a residential area, and many residents have become increasingly irritated. you will be able to get the people who only. come here to get drugs. you can stop. you get more people who have been visiting the coffee shop, or sometimes our door is quite often open when it's nice weather and you just smell, because the smell comes in the house. so then you think, 0k, tourists again. so because they, yeah, they smoke everywhere, they don't look at anything because they... yeah, and that's also a thing that you think, 0k, sorry, do it somewhere else. and from mid—may they'll have to. the council wants to revamp amsterdam's image and they'll be launching a campaign encouraging drug tourists to steer clear. anna holligan, bbc news. that's it from me.

you can reach me on twitter — i'm @samanthatvnews thank you for watching. hello. well, it certainly doesn't look like you'll need your umbrella this weekend, but then again, it's not going to be all that sunny. in fact, often cloudy, both on saturday and sunday. but i am confident a few sunny spells will develop during the course of the day. but take a look at that shield of cloud spreading off the atlantic right across the uk. this is also quite mild air, which is riding around an area of high pressure that has established itself across a large chunk of europe. but around this high we've got that wind blowing and it's pushing in the milder atmosphere towards us. so this air mass, mild air mass will be in place across the uk through the course of the weekend and into the week ahead.

no frost first thing in the morning on saturday. in fact, farfrom it. temperatures typically around about five, six, seven degrees celsius, perhaps even higher than that in one or two spots. but the cloud will be thick, in fact, really overcast in some areas first thing. but then the clouds will break. i suspect the best sunny spells will be to the east of scotland, the east of the pennines. but in one or two other areas, the sun will poke through the clouds as well. 13 degrees, so actually relatively mild even for the time of the year. the high pressure is still with us on sunday, although it is shifting a little bit towards more central parts of europe. but the weather isn't going to be changing an awful lot. however, the breaks in the cloud may appear in different places on sunday, and that's actually really difficult to forecast. it does look as though it's also going to be just a shade cooler, not that you'll notice around about ten or 11 degrees celsius. now that high pressure will continue to drift a little bit further towards the east into monday. that does mean it opens the gates to low pressure and also weather fronts, but they will be kept at bay even on monday.

and the weather isn't expected to change — again around nine, 10 to 12 degrees celsius as we head towards tuesday and wednesday. with that high pressure continuing to shift further east, these weather fronts will eventually win and arrive. and we think that around wednesday, wednesday night into thursday, that rain will arrive. so until around about tuesday, possibly wednesday. for some of us, the weather's looking dry. but after that, the second half of the week is looking cloudy with rain at times. enjoy the bright weather. bye— bye.

this is bbc news, the headlines. aid agencies says there is a mixture of hope and despair, in turkey and syria, as the painstaking search for survivors continues, after monday's earthquakes. more than 23 thousand people are known to have died — while thousands of people are living in makeshift shelters, us military fighterjets — acting on a command from president biden — have shot down an unidentified object off the northern coast of alaska. a white house spokesman said the target was the size of a small car, and posed a threat to civilian aviation. sports ministers from 35 countries have met online to discuss whether athletes from russia and belarus should participate in next year's olympic games. ukraine's president, volodymir zelensky