and extreme poverty. hello and welcome to bbc news. us defence chiefs have identified what they say is a second chinese surveillance balloon, this time over latin america. the first balloon is floating across the us mid west. antony blinken, the us secretary of state, has cancelled a trip to beijing, and accused the chinese authorities of being irresponsible. china insists the balloon is a weather monitoring device which has blown off course amd has called for tensions between the washington and beijing to be handled in a cool headed and prudent manner. our north america correspondent peter bowes reports. a surreal but increasingly serious international row. this speck in the sky could be spying on the us the chinese balloon that s been hovering over the country for several days. china insists it s a platform to conduct weather related research that s deviated from its route. beijing has apologised but the us state department says it stands by its assessment that the ball
pope francis is on an unprecedented pilgrimage of peace in the world s youngest country. on saturday evening, the pope will lead prayers at the mausoleum of south sudan s independence leader, john garang. 50,000 people are expected to attend. let s go tojuba now where we can speak to bbc africa correspondent merchuma. tell us what is happening today. good afternoon. it is a few minutes past noon and people will be meeting and pope francis and the other creators of the church will be holding a meeting. people were streaming into the mousa leeson from as early as 7am. pope francis today has met religious leaders and political leaders. he has had a very