it begins the process for a new independent regulator to oversea financial stability across the game, tougher ownership rules, a ban on sides joining breakaway leagues, and a greater say for supporters. jane dougall has more: this white paper says it finds that fans should have a greater say in the running of their clubs in terms of team name and badges. if you remember cardiff, whose original strip is blue, known as the bluebirds, they were bought by malaysian owners who unveiled a red kit that did not go down well with fans. because of that it didn't go ahead. there are owners who wouldn't listen to their fans. and more importantly, they oppose the breakaway super league which was important. this would allow the regulator to block clubs from joining breakaway leagues like that one. which is huge.

this comes from recommendation letter. the government has said, the english game remains one of the uk's greatest imports, which clubs around the world of the uk's greatest exports, which clubs around the world modelling on their success which is why the government has taken targeted steps to ensure it continues for generations. financial mismanagement led to bury�*s expulsion from the football league in 2019 — they now play in the ninth tier north west counties league and say an independent regulator is badly needed: bury has become the poster boy of footballing failure in some respects. we are tired of it. we want to move on, we also want to make sure other clubs don't suffer the same fate. everyone in the ground today has suffered from what has happened in the past. we think an independent regulator is crucial, it is the only thing that has teeth and will make the other proposals

and suggestions in the future actually happen and mean something. without that, things will fall apart and people of argue with themselves and nothing will move on. another brilliant night for england's women, who have retained the arnold clark cup, thrashing belgium 6—1 in the winner takes all game at ashton gate. the lionesses dominated the match with chloe kelly's two goals making her the tournament's leading scorer. a great night, too, for captain leah williamson, who also scored twice. the victory extends sarina wiegman�*s unbeaten run as manager to a impressive 29 matches. next, to the one major trophy still missing from manchester city's cabinet. that's the champions league. tonight they had the opportunity to move a step closer to the quarter finals but were denied victory at rb leipzig, with their first leg finishing all sqaure

as patrick geary reports: across 12 years, across a continent, manchester city have been searching. if their hunt for the european cup has taught them anything, it's a value of patience. against rb leipzig they waited 21 minutes for one riyad mahrez. leipzig seemed in no hurry and bobbed along until in the second half and they found some urgency and fluency. the feeling was that city don't offer those chances often. 15 minutes later here was an even better one. scored by gvardiol, one of europe's rising forces. no rush or panic from manchester city but in the final moments of the game they pleaded for a handball, a penalty. there claim highlighted in the post—match. they will be able to take out their frustration in the second leg, but this competition continues to stretch manchester city's patience.

wales' six nations match against england will go ahead this weekend after the welsh players decided against strike action. saturday's game in cardiff was in doubt after players threatened not to turn up because of a dispute with welsh rugby bosses over their contracts. but at a meeting today the welsh rugby union and players in the wales squad were able to settle some of their differences: welsh rugby can't keep going on this merry—go—round of crisis after crisis, because it's affecting everyone in the game. players, supporters, administrators, grassroots clubs and everybody. with the events of the last six weeks, i think everybody in welsh rugby, we all need to put together now to find the best way forward. and we need to do it collaboratively, together, to put welsh rugby back at the top of world rugby, and not the laughing stock which i think we are at the moment. i think we can do that with the collaboration that's been agreed.

andy murray is in to the quater—finals of the qatar open after a chaotic match saw him get past alexander zverev. the scot had to dig deep yet again, winning in three sets, in an absorbing three—hour encounter in doha. murray will now take to the court against french qualifier alexandre muller, less than 2a hours after beating world number 16, zverev. rarely does it the easy way, andy murray. that's all the sport for now. in a lot of the stories that we tell, they can be so bleak. you need to show some hope as well,

because hope is important. and that's the thing that, and all of those rescuers, all of those search and rescue teams, they were all there because they had hope that people had survived. even now as we talk today, they're still finding people under there. and those stories are really important. they are so important. but i think what we have to do is also balance that hope with the reality of the situation, and to say that these moments are incredibly important, but they're also rare. i'm anna foster. i'm a middle east correspondent for the bbc, which means i cover the whole of the region. i'm based in beirut,

but i go anywhere at any time. lebanon is a beautiful place, but right now its problems are putting some tourists off. there's been a lot happening in lebanon. the country is falling apart in the middle of a huge economic crisis. obviously, things in israel with the palestinians has been really busy as well. there was a period of time injuly of last year where we just travelled constantly for about a month. went to tunisia for the referendum there, covered the us presidentjoe biden�*s visit to saudi arabia. we were in turkey talking about cross—border aid to syria. i think i'm doing a good job if i'm telling you about as much of the region as possible because there are so many. the middle east is so important, and there are so many stories going on there. we begin in turkey because we're getting news of dozens of people who have died across the country, and in northern syria, following a major earthquake struck

in the early hours of this morning. i heard about the news. so i was... i was on my way somewhere else, and i was already in istanbul airport. and the first thing that i checked, actually, was the the beirut whatsapp group. and the message at the top, the first unread message was my boss, the middle east bureau chief, saying, is everybody 0k? so as soon as i saw that, ijust felt... ijust felt this tightening in my stomach. and i went down the messages, and it became apparent that it was an earthquake. i was immediately starting to think, "where do i need to go?" "how can i get there?" the problem was there'd been really bad weather in turkey that weekend, and that's why i was stuck in the airport because i'd missed my flight. so, in many ways, i was in a i was in a really good place to try and get to where i needed to be. but, also, these cancelled flights were a huge problem

and everybody else was stuck. everybody else was trying to get on cancelled flights as well. and i needed to run to get to it. but fortunately, the flight was fine. i think i got the last seat on that flight, and that took me to adana, which was the nearest city that had an airport. what i had was a driver, a trusted driver, and he was waiting for me at the airport. in that situation, not everybody does want to go out and work, but he knew that he was picking up a bbc correspondent, and that we were going to head towards the earthquake. so that... well, the earthquake epicentre. the journey was difficult for a couple of reasons. it was physically difficult because the earthquake had damaged a lot of the roads. and, at the same time as you had everybody trying to get in, you also had people trying to leave

as well, because, of course, if you've got a car, and the ability to, you want to get out of that earthquake zone. so, a lot of people had loaded up their cars and they were driving in the other direction. so, everybody met each other on this mountain road and itjust created a huge trafficjam. so, we spent maybe three hours longer in this trafficjam to do a journey that would have taken maybe 30 minutes. this is the huge line of cars that people trying to leave barash province. it's hardly moving. and people sitting here for hours, they are. i was on my own, and people have asked this. they've said, "why didn't they send you all of the team members?" "why did they leave you to go on your own?" and it wasn't a question of that. it was the fact that i got there first. so, if i'd have waited for more team members to arrive, it would have been maybe 2a hours. it might have been even longer by the time everybody

had arrived on flights. the thing with a natural disaster like this one is until somebody arrives at the scene, and starts taking pictures and talking to people and filming things, nobody quite knows the scale of it. and it takes days, often, for the size of it to become apparent. people here wonder if they can ever rebuild. "marash is finished," they told me. "marash is finished." you're the first one who arrived. did you feel any sort of pressure? it was pressure to do a good job because i knew that i'd managed to get there first. i felt the pressure to go out and actually be able to let people know what was happening. you really see the size of the effort that's going on here on top of this kind of rubble. rescuers are using their bare hands, and you can see them throwing down blocks and trying to search

desperately for survivors. this used to be a 12—story apartment building, just like the one behind it, and, so far, they've only found three survivors. one thing i really noticed on the first night was that there were so many collapsed buildings, and there was only one rescue team. and i knew, in the back of my mind, that it wasn't that those buildings were all empty. it was just that there weren't enough people there to do rescues. and it was only on the second day as we were moving at the same time as rescue teams, medics, equipment, we could see those big diggers and things being brought in. and ijust knew from looking around me that there was nobody else there. there's something about an earthquake that creates a particular level of destruction.

after an earthquake, everything is just stripped away. they're just these gray piles of concrete and dust and metal and glass. a lot of the humanity has been stripped away from it. itjust looks like a pile of masonry and rubble. as you moved around from area to area, there was just more and more and more. and you feel that you've seen the worst of the devastation. but, then, you, maybe, turn a corner and there's more. you know, you can show pictures of that. and they all look the same after a while. they all kind of meld into one. so, you have to then use words and descriptions and ways to actually get that across.

one thing i always find in stories like this, when there are so many people affected or such a big place affected, for me, it's it's always about kind of individuals and details. so, i think of this one woman who was waiting for news about her daughter, and somebody passed a makeup bag out of the ruins of a building that had collapsed. it was a pink... i can picture it. stuffed full of somebodies lipstick, mascara, whatever it might be, and they brought it out and this woman took hold of it, and she tucked it, she tucked it under her arm, and she was crying, obviously, because this meant that they were getting closer to what she knew was the body of her daughter, because they'd said that everybody in that building that

nobody had survived. and they were very clear that they were only looking for bodies to bring back to the relatives. you know, it's like those tiny details that are things that, you know, the same things that you own, the same things that you have in your life. and it's sort of it's that sudden collision of your life and somebody else�*s. and those connections where you suddenly think to yourself, that could be me or anybody standing there at that moment, waiting for the most awful news. for so many disasters you have, you know, people have id on them. they have a purse or they have a phone or they have something that can that can tell you who they were. but for this, everybody is asleep in bed, and you don't have any of those things. so, when they were going through this rubble and looking for bodies, it would often be, you know, the colour of somebody�*s pyjamas. and they would shout that out and people would think, oh, i think my daughter was wearing

purple pyjamas, so this this one might be me. this was an entire neighbourhood, and it's completely destroyed. it was hundreds of apartments, thousands of people, and the majority of them are still buried. you know, those tiny things. they feel really out of place when you're talking about that scale of destruction. but i think it's those are the things that actually that i use to try and give people an understanding of all of those tens of thousands of people. it's one one person, one family, one home, one life. i'm going to cough. i'm so sorry. can i grab some water? yeah. i'm really sorry. this is the dust it's left my poor throat is flayed.

there was a bitterly cold wind here today and it is whipping up the smoke and the debris and the particles of dirt. it goes in your eyes. it goes in your throat. and despite that, the rescuers are still here on top of this pile of rubble... and the amount of dust that that it kicks up into the air. it's just constantly in your throat and in your chest. and it makes you it makes you cough a lot. the dust is really problematic. and that's one thing that i'm still even now. this man travelled here from doncaster as soon as he heard the news of the quake. his brother is in there somewhere. i tried to do yesterday to do a dig myself, but you can't see the concrete like this or cross each other. i've got no power to lift this. you never want to leave a story, and especially not a big story. and actually, to leave a big story like that is always a massive,

massive emotional wrench. it's really hard because you always want to you know, you've gone to the effort to get there and you always want to stay there. i can't stop crying. last three, two days, i'm here. i came back to the uk because it was my daughter's birthday and she was turning nine. i try really hard to always be at home when it's the kids birthdays. everybody was really, really supportive and brilliant in making sure and it was quite a long journey as well. there was a lot of driving. the airport ports weren't functioning, so i needed to go further north to ankara to be able to actually fly out. you know, you look at the people around you who've lost everything, who've lost loved ones, who've lost homes, who will not be lucky enough to be able to perhaps spend another birthday or another moment like that with their child. the story will still be told by the people

who are staying behind. but i have to realise that, you know, this is a moment when i need to be a mum first and a journalist second. let's have a moment for your taxi driver. he's a big part of this story. he is. we were a team because normally in those circumstances, you would have a sizeable team of people. you would have somebody who spoke turkish, which i don't. and he didn't speak english either. so we did a lot of translation on the mobile phone. we had a lot of hand signals. we developed our own language so, so often he was used to me kind of having the phone and waving it and saying, internet, internet, which meant that we were going to have to drive around the area where we were to find a place where we could get some signal to broadcast or to send messages or something like that. but he was fantastic.

well, our middle east correspondent, anna foster, is in turkey. and she arrived this morning. i roped him in to do a few extra bits and pieces. so the first live that we did in the dark was for the 6:00 news that evening. but in that particular city, there was no power at all. it was completely dark. so i got him to park the car behind me and and use the car headlights to light the scene. but i was then trying to hold my phone in a way that didn't throw shadow onto my face, and it was pouring with rain at this point. so there was lots of manoeuvring to try and get that in the right place so you could see me and you could see them. this really is a picture of devastation here. the city is in complete darkness tonight. there is no power at all. the only place where you see lights. this was not what he signed up for, but he was incredibly helpful and just really willing to to do what was needed. every conversation we've ever had has been has been through a translation app.

but we did there was one maybe the second or third night. i was facetiming my family and he gave them a wave and then he was facetiming his family. so, i gave them a wave. and we, you know, we, we shared food. we had... we'd managed to get a sort of bag of supplies and chocolates and things from a petrol station. so we would sit and eat together. what does the future look like for him? for so many people who live in that region as things have become incredibly difficult. so, you know, we say goodbye and he's gone back to his family and his life. his life continues now. more than 11,000 people are now confirmed dead across southern turkey and northern syria as rescue workers. i would leave programme teams to mention the death toll because i knew that it was rising fast.

more than 12,000 are dead. it's feared thousands more. i could see the number of bodies and the regularity with which they were being brought out. but numbers on their own. without the human stories, they they don't engage in the same way. and while you can hear the number, in order for it to mean something to you, you need to you need to know about the rescuers who are risking their lives standing on this unstable rubble to try and bring people out. or you need to know about the families who are waiting or the people who were trapped under the rubble, who were trying to communicate with the rescuers. but it's the people, the people like us and what they're going through that is the the bit of the story that actually makes it mean something to you. the devastating power of the earth seen from the air. swathes of this city lie in ruins. when i was filming with my phone,

you know, sometimes on the other side of the camera, you know, sometimes i'm crying. when the rubble shows a sign, the digger stops. behind this blanket an arm reveals a body. slowly, carefully, its uncovered. i think for this one, certainly, the man at the moment ofjust having identified his dead father in the rubble. it was just a very powerful moment. i will take that one with me. you know, if you were to ask me that question again in 20 or 30 years time, i know that i would still talk about that moment. this is more than anything a huge, huge tragedy. and the hope is there.

but it is a, sadly, a small part of the bigger picture. hello there. wednesday was a much cooler day of weather across the country with temperatures dropping by around 5—6 celsius. for example, in aberdeen, we went from 13 on tuesday down to 7 on wednesday. but actually, that drop in temperatures represents something of a return to normal. you see, so far this month, it has been a very mild month indeed, particularly across the north

of the country, where temperatures have been running 3 celsius above average so far this month. now, looking at the charts for thursday, high pressure brings sunny skies to start the day across scotland, northern ireland, northern england with a frost first thing. cloudy weather across the south with a few patches of rain easing away. it will turn brighter here through the afternoon. we will see changes across the north where, northern scotland, thicker clouds on the way. outbreaks of rain and the winds strengthen through thursday afternoon with gusts of around 115—55 mph or so, so we are talking about gales developing here through the course of the afternoon. temperatures, broadly speaking, similar to those that we had on wednesday, 7—9 celsius. now, through thursday night, this band of rain will continue its journey southwards with the rain moving into parts of northern england by the end of the night. this time, the clearest skies will actually be across southern areas. this is where we're likely to see some patches of frost to start the day heading into friday. probably lowest temperatures

are about —2 or so. now, from thursday into friday, these weather fronts then continue to push their way southwards across the country. they'll introduce some fairly gusty winds across scotland and around the north sea coast, bringing with it a lot of cloud. and this band of rain you can see here, well, that's where our weather front is as it drifts its way southwards across northern ireland, moving southwards across england and wales. now, behind that, for northern england and across scotland and increasingly northern ireland through the afternoon, the clouds will break and we'll see some sunshine returning. temperatures around 8—10 celsius. what about the weekend weather prospects? well, that's going to be dominated by this area of high pressure, which isn'tjust over the uk, it's actually strengthening, and so there should be a lot of fine and dry weather. that said, the position of the high is important for how much cloud and where the best of the sunshine is going to be. certainly, it looks like the best of the sunny spells will be across western areas, will be prone to a bit more in the way of cloud affecting some of our north sea coasts, so i wouldn't mind betting there could be an odd bit of drizzle just for one or two of you, but the emphasis is still on a lot

of fine and dry weather. it's a similar story, really, into sunday — probably more in the way of sunshine across parts of scotland, northern ireland, wales and western england not doing too badly. but again, some of the eastern coasts of england might struggle with quite a lot of cloud hanging around for much of the day. temperatures through the next few days aren't really going to change that much. now, what happens into next week? well, here's our area of high pressure, and what's interesting about that is it starts to move westwards. now, depending on how far west it gets, we could start to draw some much colder air coming down from the north. that is a long, long way off. for the most part next week, the high pressure continues to bring fine weather with temperatures quite close to average. but look at that drop in temperatures right towards the very end of the week in lerwick, when we start to see some wintry showers — perhaps a sign of things to come. further southwards across england and wales next week, well, we continue with the largely dry theme with some sunny spells, perhaps a tendency for the weather to a bit cloudier as that high pressure pushes off

towards the west a little bit more. so, that's the latest weather. we'll be keeping a close eye on any colder weather over the next few days.

welcome to newsday — reporting live from singapore, i'm karishma vaswani. the headlines — ahead of the first anniversary of the russian invasion of ukraine — president putin once again defends his special military opposition. translation: there are battles going on right now on our- historical frontiers for our people. courageous warriors are fighting.