we take a look back into the future in the new slowly in february on d, w. ah, this is d w. news long from berlin. serious civil war complicates earthquake relief efforts a decade of war and a regime suspicious of outsiders means aid organizations are still struggling to reach victims in rebel held areas of syria. also coming up, mystery surrounds an object shot down by the u. s. military over alaska. the white

house, as it was, travelling at high speed, impose your threat to civilian flights, but gives no indication of the objects. ah, a mike locate, welcome to the program in syria rescue efforts in the wake of the devastating earthquake are being hampered by the complications of a decade long war there. but despite the obstacles, vital supplies are now slowly trickling into syria, where the government chang it will allow humanitarian assistance into rebel held areas. a 2nd, un relieved convoy has now also gotten through. didn't have your wives heard the devastating earthquake has struck an unimaginable blow it. assyrians, already struggling with years of civil war. many of the people living in the latter

kia province had fleet, the fighting and ed lip only for disaster to hit their new homes. community leaders say many refugees were living in these collapsed buildings and i've been young bobby motto, margaret, my cousin and his wife have 3 children. we do not know anything about them. their home is on the 2nd floor northwood. on my part, the united nations estimates 3 and a half 1000000 people may now be homeless after the quakes, which have killed thousands of others. but assistance has been slow relief efforts hampered by the complications of war and roads damaged by the shaking in a carefully choreographed tour of the quake zone. president bashar al assad visited a hospital. he has agreed to international demands to allow aid into regions, not under state control, meaning it no longer needs to go via damascus. a

2nd un, 8 convoy entered a short time ago consisting of 14 tracks loaded with various release supplies and materials for tans. hygiene and some food probably about will be handed over to an organization, partnering with the un operating and deliberate areas. williams at home from there, the 8 will be distributed to those affected by the earthquake with power outages and a lack of food and shelter. the range was on to get assistance to those struggling to survive. the quick response. now tuning into a decent humanitarian situation, dealing another blow to syrians who had really enjoyed so much up and byron from the jordan base norwegian refugee council, which provides help to syrian refugees, told me more about the challenging tass. his organization is now facing. the challenges are opposed to many,

the biggest one of them is the overwhelming nature that is looking about. millions of people affected millions of people who have no walking off with no home and people are saying shelters where there's not enough food. there's not enough eating . there's not enough water. people have to times walk outside for a few moments is to just get to the nearest bathroom. so, so the situation is very overwhelming. and with the trick on that we have seen so far, it's going to make everything more challenging despite the hopeful and optimistic trick with where we're, we're hearing on the ground, the situation on teams on the ground as we speak. and they are talking about a massive, massive challenge ahead of everyone. you talked about the fact that people are waking up in finding out that they are homeless and that they're going to shelters that are not exactly up to speed, so to speak. how is that situation going to be rectified when you have thousands of

people trying to make home in the shelters and those shelters are not providing the basic needs that people people have absolutely, absolutely, we've learned from folk is the price is that, you know, is staying away from home comes with the whole catalog of challenges. i mean people are have to say an overcrowded shelton's now. a lot of children are not sleeping well. i mean, this is the, one of the issues that have not been covered in all the impact on children's mental health children who would be for slightly, you know, to some extent that say, overcome the 12 years. and now the, the go send off memories will have come back. the state of the mission ahead of everyone is huge and simply because a lot of these people were talking about, i think that the numbers are now over 5000000 people affected by this. a lot of

those will not the go back home, and that means long term displacement on top of another way, a crisis. and that's why we need everyone to come together. this year in government says it will allow a to be delivered into rebel held areas. how confident are you that this will indeed help relieve the situation? i mean, we've been, we've been saying this full spot for 5 days. we need to explore all france on modalities or rule that, that, that the mission is one. and of course the challenges one for everyone which is to get people, you know, people out out from, under the rubble alive. and at the same time the tend to those who are in shelters . now of course we work across student government areas and we are providing aid as we speak and we are in a place like like huh. like,

like in the web, we know that, you know, every little decision here or back and you go along the way to helping you and help people to find help people overcome this. this overwhelming disaster. this is why you think that recently the recent base, the, to the last 24 hours. we have a lot of good progress on that from now. it's a time for action and time for those, you know, the big, big donors, international power to saw pushing this file and for salt funding, the disaster that has, you know, overwhelmed, everyone has these goals, the whole of the, the north and central of syria. yeah. yeah. i think we will have to end up doing that is a mid byron from the norwegian refugee cancel in aman jordan. many, many thanks. the death toll in turkey following the massive

earthquake has now passed 20000. those numbers from the national health ministry and international aid effort is underway with rescue crews and supplies being deployed to the region. teams in turkey are still finding survivors in the mountains of rubble. some have been trapped for more than 100 hours. in freezing temperatures. right now to some of the other stories making news around the world at this hour, authorities and chill, i have arrested at least 20 people suspected of starting forest fires. the blazers have killed dozens as drought and record temperatures. fuel the flames are curfew is in force in the worst areas. the leaders of brazil and the us have been holding talks to reset relations with a focus on democracy and climate change. joe biden and brazil's new president lula promised to rebuild strain diplomatic ties. both leaders to face challenges from

the far right after winning election ukraine and officials in the dumbass say russia has ramped up its attacks as part of a major offensive. it's expected this month. authority say a wave of russian missiles on friday struck power facilities across 6 regions, causing major blackouts. the attack to, to drones, rockets and cruise missiles, many of which were shot down. let's talk to marina marin, she is a defense expert at kings college london and joins us now from munich. welcome again to d. w. ukrainian governors in the eastern regions of done yeske and lou. hans say that russian thrust has in fact begun. do you see any evidence of that? thank you for having me. well, yes, we're seeing advances from the russian forces on multiple sides of the front,

most notably iran to the dark. we're still seeing heavy fighting, going around by mood. so we could say that the russians are slowly rolling out their offensive, but i don't think it has reached its peak now and they have put the ukrainian forces on the defensive war at the same make it very, very difficult by using excessive artillery, more excessive than it was 10 months ago to see where there are weak spots in ukrainian defenses, and at the same time they have intensified their air strikes on critical infrastructure in order to completely collapse ukraine's military capability. the latest barrage of russian attacks came as ukrainian president lensky happened to be in brussels, asking for extra you and nato help. what do you make of the i think it is. it is an interesting coincidence. it's way offer responding when the

commander in chief is not in the country. so it is a way, maybe symbolically to show russian disagreement and that whatever happens and whoever pledge is more a to ukraine, that's russia is not going to back down that easily. and the strikes have been very damaging to ukrainian infrastructure. so on the one hand, they have a very negative effect upon the military. and obviously they also affect the population. so russia is also trying to kind of pressure the population to basically seat their support to the government and hoping that you know, that will lead to some kind of political solution. i'm curious in your view, what are the chances of either side achieving game changing battle field gains in the near future? well, it's an interesting question because it depends on what is considered to be as

a decisive in on the battlefield. we have to remember that the son of some of battles doesn't win us a war, meaning that for the ukrainian forces, it would mean that to have a decisive victory, they would have to gain regain old territories that are currently being held by the russian forces. and ask for the russians, they would need to regain to gain the territories to capture the territories which they perceive to be their own, and namely insults in don't boss. however, the bigger question is, are they able to hold those territories? and that will essentially make out whether that key battle in this war will generate the desired strategic output. as always, our thanks to marina mirror and she is a defense expert at kings college london. thank you. the u. s. military has shot down an unidentified object over alaska, on orders from president joe biden. official say it posed

a threat to civilian flights. the u. s. air force down a suspected chinese spy balloon just last week. the white house says it's not clear where the latest object came from. out of an abundance of caution, and the recommendation of the pentagon. president biden ordered the military to down the object and they did. and it came inside our territorial waters. we have no further details about the object at this time, including any description of its capabilities, purpose, or origin. the object was about the size of a small car, so not similar in size or shape to the high altitude surveillance balloon that was taken down off the coast of south carolina. on february 4. we don't have any information that we can from a stated purpose for this object. we do expect to be able to recover the debris since it fell, not only within our territorial space, but on what we,

what we believe is frozen water. so recovery effort will be made. we asked our washington correspondents to me. so misconduct what this incident and the one last week involving a chinese balloon mean for us security. so the parent was actually asked that question in a press conference earlier on friday. and the question was, you know how the us now essentially reassess national security with the chinese my balloon incident this object and the spokesperson said that really anything that is considered a threat to national security, of course, is dealt with. and that this particular object was deemed a risk to civilian aircraft, as i said, but the reality is where he lived, that the country is on high alert, and there are also political considerations at play. here us, president biden has been heavily criticized particularly by republicans who accuse him of allowing the chinese spy balloon to fly over the country over sensitive military sites. they've called him week in the face of china. so i think it is safe

to say that that pressure, at least somewhat informed of the decision to shoot down this object off the coast of alaska. but we still, as i said, need to find out more information about what the object was and what was behind it . and we will end it there. up next we have sports life for you. with the look at football and politics. i'm michael oke, who in berlin from me and the rest of the berlin crew. thanks so much for watching . this is k w. i nico is in germany to learn german pollution pinnacle. why not learn with him online, on your mobile and free the chef. t w's e learning course nikos vague mm.