now, santos was completely denying the allegations. he also was making a reference to the fact that this prospective staffer who is a former reporter made some audiotapes, recorded conversations with santos and then leaked them. but this is just the latest serious allegation in a long string of allegations against the embattled congressman. a long string that keeps on getting longer. melanie, thank you. it is the top of the hour. just a short time ago the pentagon defended the president s choice to delay shooting town a suspected spy balloon from china. a fight jet brought it down saturday. after the balloon crossed the continental united states, multiple republicans have criticized it calling it a weak response. but commander at norad says the intelligence gathered will be of value. there was a potential opportunity for us to collect intel where we had gaps on prior balloons. this gave us the opportunity to assess what they were actually doing, what kind of capabilit
rubble and in syria, aid agencies saying that it is very difficult for them to try to get information out of the country, the infrastructure there decimated by more than a decade of that civil war. and now you ve got an earthquake that has hit impacting communications and power outages, making it very difficult for them to get information and the extent of the damage in this hard hit part of syria. and we have a seismologist on earlier in the show said that the aftershocks continue for days now which would impact the search and rescue as well. jomana karedsheh, thank you for all the work you re doing. james elder, spokesperson for unicef is joining us for me. wish i could have you on in better circumstances. my first question, do you have a team on the ground there trying to help those stranded? yeah, we have teams in syria
your workers and colleagues there on the ground in terms of trying to provide help? we look at all the earthquakes unicef has had to support. haiti, nepal, it is about things like blankets and food and water, getting in and working out how badly devastated the water system has been because people can t survive without water for very long at all. of course the bitter irony there is that people have fled their homes often standing around in bitterly cold conditions really without access to safe water. so water is key. blankets, food. psychological support, we can never overlook that. people i ve spoken to today in those parts hardest hit, people went to bed as your correspondent said and at 4:00 a.m. this terrifying idea of first you feel a few shakes and
then maybe a car alarm and glass will break. and then it is this absolutely terrifying sense of concrete starting to crumble. and so what does a parent grab. you have half a send to decide. and of course there is nothing to grab but your child. and then they flee outside to nothing, to dust and to devastation, to screams from neighbors. so psychological support, comfort, warmth are absolutely fundamental as we hope some of the other images gets a we just saw from you, the little boy, the toddler, we need more of those images as we wait for those brave rescue workers and unicef builds in as many life-saving supplies as we possibly can from water systems to hygiene kits to try to take some of the pain away. and these rescue workers are heroic, really trying to save as many lives as possible and we know many countries have already offered to provide as much help as needed as well as the united states included obviously.