live from our studio in singapore, this is bbc news. it s newsday. republicans have criticised president biden over the amount of time it took to shoot down a chinese observation balloon that flew across the united states. china has said shooting down the balloon was an obvious over reaction. the diplomatic fall out is continuing, as warships try to recover the debris. secretary of state antony blinken was due to be in beijing this week, but he postponed the trip after the balloon was discovered. barbara plett usher reports from beijing. for days, this solitary object floated serenely through us airspace, putting a diplomatic crisis onto television screens in real time. was it a harmless weather balloon, as the chinese claimed, or a spy in the sky? moments after it arrived over the atlantic, the us brought an explosive end to the drama. that trail of white vapour you see on the left of the screen is an american fighterjet heading for the balloon. the second vapour trail is fr
of his remaining time in exile. 0ur islamabad correspondent caroline davies looks back at this life. as his troops clambered over the fences of pakistani state tv, 6eneral pervez musharraf announced pakistan needed the army, not politicians to be in control. your armed forces have never and shall never let you down, inshallah. musharraf portrayed himself as a liberal, disliking the term military dictator. when 9/11 happened and the war on terror began, he publicly declared he was with the west, although later he said america gave him little choice. it was a high wire act, balancing us demands with increasingly anti american islamist sections of pakistan. musharraf ordered the siege of a mosque in islamabad whose religious leaders and students had condemned his pro western policy. the outrage at what