An through the children a sneak peek at 2 critically acclaimed works debuting at the Berlin Film Festival. And in sport rivington is the tennis jobber clinched the biggest win of her career in doha ranked 44th in the world and jabber stand at 30th carolina just about 3 support the finals of the qatar open. The Syrian Government has launched a cancer offensive to recapture the town of sana keep in the province. But was taken by turkish bank rebels overnights to turkish soldiers were killed or airstrikes jury that fights now heres why sort of keep this in. Oughtnt sits on the junction of the m 4 and m 5 highways whoever controls the highways gains considerable military and economic advantages the m 5 links aleppo with the capital damascus in the south the growing raids in areas you can see are controlled by the governments the shrinking green are rebel territory or yellow in the north and west is controlled by the kurds lets get more now from our hes in a in syria and turkey rather near the border with syria and this is a fast moving situation and its changing every hour was the very latest youre hearing from the ground. Well hello the rebels are sending in more reinforcements d more fighters into the city of sirte archive a while ago one of the top military commanders was was in the city saying that this is just the beginning of a Major Military offensive to reclaim the territory the opposition lost over the last few months the rebels we do understand from our sources have also managed to rig up the other villages of the outskirts of sokoban they seem to be moving to worst button a man another major stronghold that they were forced to abandon about a month ago the biggest challenge that is going to face the opposition in the upcoming days basically Holding Ground in the problem is that for them to be able to do that they will need. Cover from turkey what we seeing it over the last few hours is that Syrian Government is russian are like are starting to strike rebel positions inside arc up to prevent the rebels from establishing their 1st defense lines in those areas ok. Heres an update there from the turkey syria border are familiar thank you lets get some analysis now from john my greek lee hes a defense analyst and heads of the global of global risk rather for the Geneva Center for policy thank you very much for speaking to us live from geneva just give us some context to start with this is always been a very complicated war but now turkey is in the mix just explained to us what exactly turkey is doing there what are they hoping to achieve with this intervention. Roy so you have to put that into the broader context of the syrian war sort of 1st goal that all the parties underground had was to destroy the Islamic State and that has been basically achieved now you end up with the 2nd course and obviously the schools are do not know longer alive for turkey it was 1st and for most to avoid having. Control of the tricks at its southern border and therefore they moved into turkey to prevent that hindley front it is a bit different because italy was part of an agreement between iran and russia that was agreed in 2018 to create deescalation zone 4 of. 11 was one of it the free of the zone where be the cleared of the rebels and then we moved it leaps and now you end up in a situation where italy gathers all the opposition to. Assad regime as well as parity of from alqaeda former. Sharm and here basically turkey for such agreement in. 18 has agreed to turn. Up the reason for that is that for turkey it is a key area because they want to prevent a flood a rift of refugees in they can treat turkey has already more than 3500000 Syrian Refugees and its to retreat and therefore for turkey its vital to try to curb the influx and the flux of this of this refugee is well if we just take a look at where we are no mean adlib is no longer you cannot say this is a safe place. Escalation zone anymore because were hearing horrifying stories from civilians on the grains turkeys wanting to try to prevent more refugees coming in but that position also puts it with the Syrian Governments and also with with russia at the same time so how likely do you think it is were going to see turkish soldiers starting to come in and play a more active part in this conflict what exactly does a win look like for turkey at this stage. He writes a basically these discolorations and has not been respected 3 1 reason being that turkey has not been able to to pacify the area and what weve seen now is that since last december. Sad regime purty good bye russia has pushed through its cleary the area of italy and that led to direct confrontation between turkish soldier. Regimes soldier and also russia russia using mainly air power night in turkish soldier have been killed so far in italy so it is very likely that the situation will continue to escalate there is a meeting that is for syria to be. Next week in europe between russia and turkey germany and france in order to solve the situation but the facts under ground are that the Syrian Regime supported by russian air power has the upper hand over the Turkish Military ok well well have to wait and see where turkey goes from here and i thank you very much mark rickly defense analyst for global risk for the geneva sense and thank you for joining us we will continue or syria Coverage Later in the program will take a specific look at the human cost of this war the u. N. Calls it a horrifying situation also ahead on the news are suffering on both sides hindus and muslims mourn after violent street battles in india. Plus warnings that cities powering the worlds economy could soon be lost beneath the waves. And in sports or for streets ignites for the italian champions as they look for their 1st european title in 24 years sunnah well have all the details for you in the sports. My. I pod of course theres travel restrictions and trade routes have been suspended governments arent cool saying ever tougher measures to control the spirits of coronavirus south koreas confirms another 505 cases meaning its overtaken china in huge daily infection numbers in the middle east so if your a. B. S. Holds and visas for the pilgrimage and restricts interest travel from affected countries now iran iraq rather has closed schools and universities and bans public gatherings as well as flights from several countries and of course in iran 22 people have died donald trump has promised the u. S. Government will spend whatever is needed to deal with the outbreak and hes put Vice President mike pence in charge of americas response in europe italys confirmed its 12th death and theres been a seconds over in france overall some 82 thousands infections have now been recorded in 44 Different Countries and territories what weve got to reporters on this story this hour is in south korea but 1st us joins in the shrubbery his interrogatory as by skype saying weve seen another spike in numbers in iran but also some significant you confirmed cases just bring us up to date which is. Well weve got a number of deaths that have happened since yesterday the death toll that we saw yesterday was at 1000 that has been confirmed as 22 today so we have seen 3 more people unfortunately died as a result of this thats according to official government figures and there are a confirmed 141. 00 cases including another member of the Iranian Parliament this time a conservative member of the parliament so people on social media people saying that this disease knows no political boundaries now the government is taking this seriously again the numbers that we are seeing coming from official government sources far smaller than what we initially heard from a member of parliament in her home who said that the figures were far higher putting the initial death toll in one closer to 50 and again the government not saying that that is the case efficient understands at 22 theyre also taking seriously any misinformation or any spreading of what they consider rumors very seriously theyve made it illegal to spread any sort of information that is incorrect about the spread of the coronavirus saying that could have negative economic implications for the country and that that has been made it legal and punishable by one to 21 to 3 years jail time as well as flogging and thats according to several state media sources now looking ahead to tomorrow it is friday friday prayers are an important part of the week here in iran and friday prayers in affected areas and mosques in affected areas have been suspended for this week but the government guidance is that those places that have seen cases of coronavirus should not hold those prayers going into iran it the main mosque friday prayers will still go ahead they will still go forward the government is said that they will be sanitizing this main the large main mosque in the capital and have advised the children elderly anyone with a respiratory illness anyone with a medical condition like heart a heart condition they should stay home and they should. Like coming to the main mosque in the capital but again friday prayers go forward in the capital but have been suspended in many other countries and the same day the government is taking the serious as you say but lets not forget that one Deputy Health minister and i member of parliament have contracted the degree disease what on earth is the iranian public making of all of this. Well certainly there has been a lacking in public trust in what government officials are saying thats been the case for a number of months now for a number of crises that this country has faced the flow of information has been very controlled we cant forget that it runs government is very tightly controlling any information that feeds out to the public on really any given issue and thats been the case over a number of things that have happened in this country a number of incidents that weve seen play out since the beginning of the here the idea is to control information to maintain primarily the writ of the state that is the primary goal of the leadership here and iranian people how are arguably tired of that they are overwhelmed and exhausted by this slow flow of information and so social media is where a lot of information proliferates that the government cant always control directly so the iranian people are certainly struggling to cope with whether or not to believe their own government present us with iranian in recent days has over and over again stressed that the government is to be believed that he is pushing for transparency now we have seen one example of this playing out on the roads the roads leading the capital tehran today the government is saying are 20 percent more congested and then normal and that house minister sayed no makee was actually known to have complained that the reason that they shut down schools and universities was to keep people in their homes to try and control the spread of the coronavirus not for people to try to get out of the city and try to go to other parts of the country now that is that is something that people are doing against the advice of the government but it may be to get to or climates where this disease is no its not proliferate as the quickly so many people seen go into the north of the country there is some positive news to border crossings with iraq are said to have opened to continue supplying food and other goods to iraq one of the countrys main economic partners. Bring us all the latest there from tehran thank you very much indeed lets get more from brides ains saw in south korea has recorded its highest number of new cases in a single day. Tell us about the situation where your. It is something of a grim milestone weve gradually been witnessing the numbers of new cases in china declining while the numbers of new cases in south korea have been going up and this it seems is the point at which the 2 graphs have crossed south korea taking over recording more daily cases of the corona virus so it is something of a milestone if you want to find something positive in the statistics then it is that at least more people are being identified that the testing does seem to be working tests for the virus are being carried out in the epicenter around the city of daegu in the southeast of the country almost on an industrial scale now literally thousands every day people are who are sick are being identified they are being treated and of course we know that the main focus is still the members of this one church who underwent who got to this mass infection at a couple of services now the 2nd of those services was on february the 16th so Health Officials are telling us that this would be the end of the incubation period of the virus and thats why you are seeing that reflected a spike in the numbers of of cases what happens in the coming days well the same Health Officials will be hoping that with the emergency measures that have been in place in the alarm was raised over a week ago people told to self quarantine and so on that that would start now to be reflected in the daily tallies of new infections if its not and if we continue to see big increases big spikes then what that tells us is that the members of the congregation the 1st infections are gradually being accounted for and what were now seeing are secondary and tertiary infections which is far more worrying indeed it is and its a situation thats being taken so seriously that we now have confirmation do we know that the u. S. And south korea will in fact be calling off those joint military exercises because of the virus. It would have been surprising if they had not been called off this is a government that is telling its own people to avoid crowds avoid gatherings could hardly then hosted these war games bringing together thousands of troops in close proximity the south Korean Military forces they have a number of their own confirmed cases on wednesday it was confirmed by the u. S. Military that they had their 1st case of coronavirus you have at various military bases restrictions on access some self quarantining has been put into effect in some barracks these exercises they take place every spring they are always controversial as you know north korea will always attack them they say that they are very provocative and yet they have gone on for decades despite hostility to the hospital hostility level on the Korean Peninsula despite the past couple of years the reconciliation process they have gone on through all of that it seems they have not survived the coronavirus ok rob mcbride their life isnt so thank you. Well across the Demilitarized Zone north korea is ramping up efforts to prevent an outbreak tourists are being banned International Flights and trains suspended and hundreds of foreigners have been quarantined in secretive country is yet to report a single case north korea has say poor medical infrastructure after years of sanctions russia says it sent hundreds of Virus Testing kits. Well as we heard earlier saudi arabia is also implementing strict measures including stopping travel to holy sites in the country he is the editor in chief of International Interest in middle east focus Current Affairs news magazine he joins us now by skype from city busied in good to have you with us on the news hour just give us a sense if we could put it in perspective for viewers who are perhaps not as familiar with Islamic Culture in the traditions how significance is that this has been no been cancelled. Its unprecedented is the 2nd largest pilgrimage of course is the largest were only 5 months away from the edge which brings millions of people from around the world from all 4 corners of the world to. Hundreds of thousands of people every month they go to another they go to mecca people from all over the world from iran from korea from japan from these countries that are hit by the corona virus and this is why we see saudi arabia taking that step to prevent pilgrims from coming to saudi arabia because everybody in mecca is in that environment everybody is grouped together and according to many Health Experts its a haven if anybody does have the coronavirus its a haven for the krona virus to spread it is unprecedented its very controversial theres a lot of debate going on in the muslim circles on social media whether its right for saudi arabia to do this or not put that on top of the geo political context where the saudi government is seen as engaged in the islam isaac society theres a lot of controversy going on on social media but nevertheless its a huge it brings that 100000 people together and this is why saudi has decided to temporarily suspend it well well surely this is its a sensible measure given the trial number of infections are that have been occurring up in iran the other holy site for Shiite Muslims is the city of corm so surely there was a controversial decision could surely see that its about the sensible step to take because now. No of course and even in islam a tradition its well known that whenever there is a plague or outbreak of disease or virus it is one of the Islamic Teachings that the people of that city should not leave the city and people should not travel to that city where there is disease or where there is a plague so in terms of Health Reasons it makes sense you have to remember that the countries that have the outbreak of coronavirus countries like iran countries even in europe are now where the corners are suspending algeria reported its 1st case there were rumors in tunisia that even reached here in tunisia as well saudi receives hundreds of thousands of people tens of thousands at least from these countries so it makes perfect sense for it to put measures in place in order to prevent the spread of a coronavirus especially given that the hajj season is coming after 5 months which brings those millions of people together into a side arabia saudi arabia will think if i can contain the virus at least in these 5 months then i want to have to prevent the hajj season and of course of the hatches and prevented then that is that will be a huge debate across 1600000000. 00 muslims but i think there is a general consensus