good morning, and welcome to cnn this morning. it is saturday, january 20th. i m amara walker. i m victor blackwell. thank you for joining us. we re starting with breaking news out of syria. several people are reportedly dead, after an israeli missile struck a multi-story building in damascus. cnn s ben wedeman is following the story, joining us now from beruit. what can you tell us about what happened? reporter: well, what we know, a few hours ago, there was a large explosion in a district of damascus, an upscale neighborhood where many embassies are located. what we ve seen on social media, there was a huge explosion, massive column of smoke apparently brought down a three-story building. now, syrian state media is saying it was an israeli air strike. cnn has reached out to the israeli military. they have yet to comment on that. but we understand from the news agency, a semi-official iranian news agency, they are quoting the irgc, the islamic revolutionary guard corps
continuing tonight to watch the development in turkey, and in syria. the death toll there is just astonishingly high. from an absolutely huge earthquake, and in almost equally large aftershock. that hit today. the initial quake was centered in south central turkey. that an issue jolted between four and 4:30 in the morning, so before, home and their beds. that initial quake was a 7.8 magnitude. which is just enormous. and was follow, hours later. by an aftershock that was 7.5. and having such a huge quite like that followed by such a quick succession by almost an equally large quake means anything that was significantly damaged, but still standing after the foreshock. it came down in the aftershock. in turkey alone, they re saying there are more than 5000 buildings that have collapsed across 14 different turkish cities. across the southern border of turkey, into northern syria, there are, again, thousands of buildings collapse there. as well, between turkey and syria, we are
of the invasion. ukrainian forces have launched a long awaited counter offensive in the south of the country. a very good early morning to you. now on bbc news, it s hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur. not only has ukraine been irrevocably changed by vladimir putin s military aggression, so has russia. putin has used the conflict to crack down harder on dissent and instil an ever more strident brand of nationalism that made life in moscow unbearable for my guest today. pinchas goldschmidt was chief rabbi of moscow till he fled from russia and left his post. his fate has exposed the scale of widerjewish flight from russia and divisions within thejewish community. why is this war deepening jewish anxiety? rabbi pinchas goldschmidt in jerusalem, welcome to hardtalk. hi, stephen. thank you for inviting me to hardtalk. it s the second time with you. it s the second time and it s a pleasure to have you back on the show. things have changed since you were last talking
within thejewish community. why is this war deepening jewish anxiety? rabbi pinchas goldschmidt in jerusalem, welcome to hardtalk. hi, stephen. thank you for inviting me to hardtalk. it s the second time with you. it s the second time and it s a pleasure to have you back on the show. things have changed since you were last talking to me there. you sit in jerusalem. you served as chief rabbi of moscow for, what, pretty much three decades. you made your life in russia and just a couple of months ago, you chose to leave. why? i went to sleep the 23rd of february in the evening in moscow, and i woke up in the morning in a different country. it was still moscow, but with different rules, with different laws. and ifelt. ..that the world is changing and. ..isaw. ..the bombs, bombing of kyiv. the new laws in russia cracking down on dissent. we saw that the remnant of any free media was closed down. ekho moskvy, the novaya gazeta and others. and. but this is only the beginning. intere
Particular, and emergency within an emergency. again, the death toll already is almost unbelievably high. it is nearing 4000 as of right now. but there is reason to worry that the numbers going to rise substantially. it is potentially going to be rising by a multitude. this is a big disaster that is going to change this part of the world. and countries all over the world. from us to iran, from switzerland, to hungary. so everyone all over the world. the house rescue teams descend that they are sending the rescue teams right now. as i said, there watching this story about tonight. we ll let you know more as we learn more. that s why when we join live night by kathleen shoes when the nation s leading researchers on far-right extremism and white power movements. we had her hair is a guest on the show the pass. the duchess can be had because the partner justice held a dramatic surprise press conference about a plot they believe they disrupted by a