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have walked out of those parts of mosul still controlled by islamic state. they ve arrived with the close they ve come with and a few spares. they need food, they need water, they need shelter. it s a massive humanitarian challenge, and not nearly as big as the one that may literally be coming down that road in the next few weeks. from where the black smoke is, which is where the islamic state positions are here in mosul. they are apparently about 800 metres, one kilometre, away. this is very much a theatre of war. the people who have been coming in have been talking about what they have been through. they have talked about air strikes that have come in in the last few days and killed, as well as killing people from is, have killed hundreds of civilians. they ve complained that the jihadist have used them as human shields. but they have also, in tears and anger, spoken bitterly about the effects of air strikes on civilians. i spoke to multiple witnesses who said that th ....
around 1,000 people took to the streets in a pro democracy march ahead of the election. there are three candidates to succeed the outgoing leader cy leung. his deputy, carrie lam, is beijing s choice for the top job. her main rival, former finance chiefjohn tsang, is the public‘s favourite. the final candidate is retired judge woo kwok hing. the bbc‘sjuliana liu is at the count in hong kong. the successful candidate needs just over 600 votes to win and the clear frontrunner is carrie lam, hong kong s former top civil servant. she is widely perceived to be hong kong. beijing s preferred candidate and that s indicated in a series of direct or indirect interviews the local press, as well as indications in pro beijing media. so barring any very last minute scandal or very unexpected upset, she is expected to be announced hong kong s next chief executive in about two hours. just tell us what public opinion is like when it comes to this election, because there is a pro de ....
Weather balloon that drifted off course. beijing is condemning the u.s. decision to shoot it down. cnn s selina wang joins us from beijing. what s the latest from your end? reporter: well, jim, beijing has been saying the u.s. is overreacting by shooting down its balloon, and china s defense ministry gave this vague warning that it reserves, quote, the right to use necessary means to deal with similar situations. but it s clear that china doesn t want to escalate things further. beijing has been trying to repair the relationship with the u.s., and secretary of state antony blinken s now postponed trip to china was supposed to be a big political win. both the u.s. and china use surveillance satellites to spy on each other from the air. so if china already has these more sophisticated satellites, we re still left with this question of why it would use a balloon for spying and why at such a critical moment right before blinken s trip. we still don t know if it was an accident, if it was ....
You ve been in this position of having to deal with the chinese on a diplomatic level. they can be hard-nosed adversaries. does the biden administration need to get tough and sort of give a very upfront warning to the chinese that this cannot ever happen again? well, the trip had to be canceled, and it was a message to beijing that if you re going to spy, use your high-altitude satellites the way that we re spying on them. don t send balloons that are visible to the american people over our territory and that we will respond with force. we had to shoot it down, and we had to tell the american public. now we re going to be able to collect some of the evidence and some of the actual surveillance equipment, and we ll be able to present to the world that, hey, this is not just a weather balloon. are you worried about the state of u.s./china relations right now? have you seen them as bad as ....
Jinping was looped in because it certainly is an embarrassment and a setback. china has been sticking to this line that it s just a civilian research balloon, a weather balloon that went off course. state media even announced that the head of china s weather service has been dismissed, which some analysts say is an attempt to support beijing s claim that this was indeed a weather balloon that went astray. now, the u.s. says they are confident this was a surveillance balloon trying to monitor sensitive military sites. the u.s. said this balloon and the other one that was spotted over latin america have surveillance equipment not usually used for standard civilian research and say both are part of a fleet of chinese spy balloons that have been spotted across five continents over the last several years. and how is the incident being covered by chinese state media, for example? what are they saying? reporter: well, chinese state media is mostly parroting the official line and also accu ....