welcome to bbc news. more now on the news that a massive earthquake has killed more than 500 people in turkey and syria, and i canjoin my colleague for more. welcome to all of you watching on pbs and around the globe. we are bringing you special coverage of breaking news this hour. a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake has struck northern syria and also south eastern turkey. official figures say officialfigures say more official figures say more than 650 people have been killed, that figure will rise. the earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.8 struckjust before dawn. the epicentre was in the turkish province of gaziantep. buildings collapsed, hundreds of miles away. there were also reports of many of the casualties in northern syria, across the border. the tremor was also felt in lebanon, gaza, jordan, cyprus and iraq. turkey has declared a state of emergency. syria s government, meanwhile, has also held an emergency meeting in order to decide how they will respond. witnesses from
and iran says it has foiled an unsuccessful drone attack on a military facility in central isfahan province. here in the uk, allies of the prime minister rishi sunak have defended his decision to wait for the outcome of an inquiry before sacking the chairman of the conservative party nadim zahawi. the investigation judged the former chancellor had failed to be open about his finances in a serious breach of the ministerial code. opposition parties say mr zahawi should have been dismissed as chairman sooner, and that he should step aside as an mp. with all the days events, here s our political editor chris mason. nadhim zahawi arrived in the uk as a child, unable to speak english. he became a multimillionaire and rose to be chancellor of the exchequer. but tonight, his political career and reputation is in tatters. in a 2,000 word letter to the prime minister, the government s ethics adviser is devastating in his criticism of mr zahawi. sir laurie magnus says minutes after the
expediting the license for authorising the use of weapons for civilians. a bus has plunged into a ravine in pakistan, killing at least 41 passengers. novak djokovic has won his tenth australian open tennis tournament, beating greece s stefanos tsitsipas in straight sets in the men s final. the british prime minister, rishi sunak, has sacked the chairman of his conservative party, nadhim zahawi. his dismissal comes after an independent investigation of mr zahawi s tax affairs. these have been the subject of growing controversy since it emerged that he had to pay a penalty to the tax authorities. the prime minister said the investigation made clear that there has been a serious breach of the ministerial code . mr sunak received the report from sir laurie magnus, the independent adviser on ministers interests. sir laurie told the prime minister that certain omissions by mr zahawi fell short of the standards that ministers are expected to abide by. he concluded, i consider t
hello and welcome to bbc news. we begin this hour with some breaking news from scotland, where the prison service has announced an urgent review of all transgender cases in its prisons. it says it will pause the movement of all transgender inmates until the review is complete. it follows the outcry of the case of isla bryson, a trans woman convicted of raping two women before changing gender. isla bryson was initially remanded to cornton vale women s prison before being moved to a male wing at hmp edinburgh. the scottish prison service says that we have commenced an urgent review of all trans gender cases currently manage in our establishment. ourfirst cases currently manage in our establishment. our first concern cases currently manage in our establishment. ourfirst concern is always and remains the health, safety and well being of all the people in our care and that of our staff. we have very robust risk assessment processes and a track record of keeping people safe in ofte