This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Nick Miles and at 14 hours GMT on Wednesday, the 8th of February, these are our main stories.

The Turkish President has defended his government's response to Monday's devastating earthquakes.

President Biden has given his State of the Union address,

and international investigators have suspended their inquiry into the shooting down of an airliner

over Ukraine in 2040. Also in this podcast, Ukraine's president makes an unexpected visit to Britain.

Rescuers are continuing their efforts in Turkey and Syria, looking for survivors under

collapsed buildings and distributing aid in the aftermath of those major earthquakes on Monday.

We begin in Turkey, where the government says that close to 100,000 rescue workers are in place

in the towns and villages hit by the quake. Our Middle East correspondent Tom Bateman sent this report

from the Port City of Iskenderum.

Life in Iskenderum has been reduced to brutal survival. Disaster surrounds this city,

of buildings thrown sideways and the air turned black. The missing are still trapped in their own homes,

and an abandoned car park becomes a haven for the homeless.

Salvees having to sleep here with their children and four grandchildren.

We spot her six-year-old grandson Amor lying on two small mattresses.

There are medicine bottles on the tarmac beside him. Salvees tells me he's epileptic,

his health is fragile. The only aid supplies the families had are two blankets,

and they gave them to the boy.

Last night one of my son's friends came with his car and we all stayed in that,

so Salvees. We made this tent from plastic sheets to protect ourselves from the rain.

There's a big white van is turned up here, and there's two guys handing out clothes from the back.

...