and a peace mission to south sudan the pope makes an unprecedented visit, alongside the leaders of the church of england and church of scotland. hello, and welcome to audiences in the uk and around the world. the giant chinese balloon that had been floating over the united states has been shot down by an american fighterjet off the coast of south carolina. the balloon, which the us says was being used to spy on military sites, appeared to plummet straight into the sea. china continues to insist it was a stray civilian weather observation airship. a short time ago, this is what president biden said. i ordered the pentagon to shoot it down as soon as possible, they decided without doing damage to anyone on the ground. they decided that the best time to do that was as it got overwater within a 12 mile limit. they successfully took it down, and i want to complement our aviators who did it, and we ll have more to report on a little later. our north america correspondent david wi
guardrails to prevent any escalation of any future conflict. and of course, that has now been put on the back burner. they are both saying both sides that they are open to rescheduling anthony blinken s visit. but mr blinken made quite clear that before that happens, the balloon has to be done with. and president biden, when he was asked the question about where this leaves us sino relations, he opted not to reply do we think that we ll hearfrom him again? well, that s right, and that was a throwaway comment i think the point of that was really to make the point that he had given permission for this to be shot down on wednesday, and that was the message that he stuck to in that little interaction with reporters there, on his way to the presidential retreat, camp david. we may well get more on this from the president probably not today, i wouldn t imagine. he s let the pentagon officials speak for themselves,