Welcome to bbc news im mike embley. Our top stories blockades and barriers chinas villages try to keep out strangers and coronavirus. President trump accuses his former National Security advisor of betrayal and the white house warns him not to publish his book. Fraternal singing from some, flag waving from others. Brexit clears its final legal hurdle in the European Parliament. The sun as its never been seen before. Well talk to one of the scientists behind these new High Resolution images of its surface. More foreign citizens are due to leave the chinese city of wuhan as the number of those who are infected with the potentially deadly coronavirus continues to increase. The authorities there say that 170 people have now died with another 1,700 confirmed cases. In the next few hours hong kong will halve the number of flights to Mainland China as well as suspending train and ferry services. John sudworth has the latest. Safely out of wuhan, a plane arriving at a California Air base with 200 americans on board. Earlier, japan got a flight full of its citizens out, touching down in tokyo. The night before the great escape. But the brits are still only preparing to leave. Kharn lamberts grandmother, vera, stuck here on holiday, is running low
on her medications. How do you feel about going home . Delightful. Theres frustration with the uk government. I think its been an absolute shambles, to be honest with you. I dont think the government have really known what theyve been doing. I dont think theyve had as much contact with the chinese authorities as they say, because, if they had, i would assume that theyd been getting the same information that the americans have got, the japanese have got, and theyd have been able to put plans in place sooner. Despite the lockdown, infections in wuhan are still rising rapidly, and anyone flown home from here faces two weeks in uk quarantine. Maeve clarke, a lecturer from birmingham, stuck in wuhan, says she understands why. I think its a good precautionary measure and its in line with what other governments are doing as well, and i think it gives reassurance to people back home, in the uk, that the right
steps are being taken. Much is still not known about the virus but, across china, few are taking any chances. Villagers are putting up roadblocks and shutting out the world with great barriers of earth. No outsiders are allowed in at all, this man tells me. Beyond the human cost, for china there is another impact to all of this fear. With countries beginning to advise against travel, with airlines cancelling flights, and with whole villages cutting themselves off from the outside world, the Economic Cost is likely to be severe. My name is nick. This is. For some uk nationals, escape is not an option. Nick house is british but his wifes from indonesia. Shes been told she cant get a place on the plane. My mum and dad are worried, my sisters worried. Theyjust want us home, really. They face more long weeks of uncertainty in a ghost city. More now live from new york with doctorjohn cahill, director of Global Health and Tropical Medicine Services at mount sinai, and advisor on Coronavirus Response in the us. Thank response in the us. You very much indeed for your thank you very much indeed for your time. I know you have enormous experience with sars, can you give us enormous experience with sars, can you give us more enormous experience with sars, can you give us more detail about this coronavirus . What does to the body and who is most at risk . Of course. Good evening morning. This coronavirus to date seems to be less severe than sars though it is premature to have a full understanding of how significant this virus might be. But at this point, it is slightly more severe than influenza and the patients that we are influenza and the patients that we a re really influenza and the patients that we are really worried about at this point would be the elderly, the very young and the
people with significant lung disease or heart disease. It typically presents with a fever, chills, shortness of breath and a bad cough that can rapidly progress. The thing about this that is different to sars is that this virus, where sars is that this virus, where sars was within a two to three days, incubation period is 14 days, incubation period is 14 days which is different to the other coronavirus as was seen in the last few years. That incubation period as you say is different and problem stopping express more likely . It makes a spread it much more it very ha rd spread it much more it very hard for us as Public Health officials to have a very good grasp and to be able to predict what is going to be the course of this virus. Hence the recommendation is that anyone travelling from china at this point should be quarantined for two weeks before going to a workplace or being close to otherfamily workplace or being close to other family members. What is your best weapon against it . Awareness . Your best weapon against it . Awareness . Health awareness, quarantine and time. So me over the next month or so, will have a much better idea about where this virus is headed and how much it will have an impact both for china as well as for the global population. It is the global population. It is the keeping. Sorry to interrupt you but what chance of a vaccine do you think . A vaccine is very promising but once again, were talking about three to six months before a vaccine will be readily available and by then, we will probably have seen at the peak of the outbreak before the vaccine available. Properly speaking before your how worried are you about this coronavirus . Are not overtly worried. We still need to learn more butjust like influenza, isa more butjust like influenza, is a little bit more severe. We need to have excellent Public Health surveillance and quarantine is the right thing to do this point but hopefully this will be a virus that will be limited over the next month. Looking at sars or eastern
respiratory syndrome, and other coronavirus, those initially tended to be much more severe than this Novel Coronavirus that we are looking at right now. Thank you so much for your time. Youre very welcome and have a good evening. Two decommissioned satellites travelling at more than 48 kilometres an hour have had a near miss. Organisations tracking Space Objects recorded them coming within metres of each other above pennsylvania. They plan to release full data within the coming hours. A deal is expected in washington, between egypt, ethiopia and sudan, over the contentious nile renaissance dam. Its reported ethiopia has agreed to fill the dam in stages during the rainy season not all at once. Egypt relies on the river for 90 of its water supply. The latest Scientific Research suggests the lungs have an almost magical ability to repair the damage caused by smoking but only if you actually quit. A study, published in thejournal nature, found that cells that escape damage can help the lungs
recover, even for patients who smoked 20 cigarettes a day for 40 years. Many scientists had believed the mutations that lead to cancer are permanent. The white house has warned the former us National Security advisor, john bolton, not to publish a book which it says contains classified information. Speculation is growing that he may give evidence at the president s impeachment trial after leak of his memoirs appeared to contradict the defence put forward by Donald Trumps lawyers. They wrapped up their arguments earlier triggering two days of questioning by senators. Lets speak to our correspondent in washington chris buckler. How would you characterise things at the moment and how significant are these developments . I think it adds pressure to donald trump and his lawyers to really address this issue of whether or not witnesses will give evidence and of course, that has been somewhat of a battle between democrats and republicans that has been taking place away from
the chamber as all of this evidence and this testimony has been given during this impeachment trial so far. Frankly, democrats need witnesses. They need to try and bring new evidence to this case. So far, theyre only really been re emphasising what has been spoken about during the impeachment hearing, and bolton have a lot to say. Thats certainly backed up by some of the extracts that have been published by the new york times. They had a leak of a copy of his book which seems to suggest that this key issue that donald trump basically was withholding military aid to ukraine to the idea that the country should launch investigations into his political rivals, particularly joe biden for the benefit of himself personally and politically. They do not want john bolton to give evidence. They have been suggestions that it was shifting to the point where there was concern among Republican Leadership that they we re Republican Leadership that they were actually losing the numbers and could lose this fight. There are indications today that it might be going
the other way, that democrats could be losing this argument once again but it is very finely balanced with 53 republicans and 47 people voting within the Democratic Caucus and you do get the sense that it caucus and you do get the sense thatitis caucus and you do get the sense that it is still a fight that is playing outside the chamber. And yet, surely ifjohn bolton, evenif and yet, surely ifjohn bolton, even if it does give evidence, for those republican senators whose position is essentially, the president may have done this but it is not abuse of fire as they say it, not obstruction of congress, no high crimes and misdemeanours here, is this evidence going to actually make any difference . It wont make a difference in terms of his impeachment because youre right, it takes two thirds of the senate to convict a president and remove them from office and that is not going to happen. Weight is important for the democrats is that they are also thinking about the election that is to come in november, the president ial election when it donald trump will once again to fight and stand again for the white house. Fundamentally, if
we have witnesses coming forward and giving evidence during the senate in which they put forward this Critical Evidence of donald trump, where they raise questions about what he has done in his presidency, the democrats believe that could be very beneficial to them in an election fight, even if they dont say it in quite those terms. And it does give you this idea that this impeachment trial is only really a tester of the vote and at the pretty bitter Election Campaign that is to come. Thank you for that chris. The Brexit Process has cleared its final legislative hurdle the European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly to ratify the withdrawal agreement. The vote, after farewell statements from members, clears the way for the uk to leave the eu at 11pm on friday. Our europe editor katya adler reports. For auld lang syne, my dear for auld lang syne. Its been an emotional day in brussels. Most of these meps deeply regret brexit. They felt honour bound today to approve the negotiated brexit deal. But they meant what they then sang. After more than 40 years of eu membership, old acquaintances, the uk in this case, will not be forgotten. To come to results. The new European Commission president declared everlasting love for the uk today, using the words of british novelist and poet george eliot. Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depth of love. We will always love you and we will never be far. Long live europe. Applause it is all over, finished and the uks best known European Parliamentarian ensured he would not be forgotten. He told the eu it was doomed, and then. I know you want to ban our National Flags, but we are going to wave you goodbye, and we will look
forward in the future to working with you as sovereign. Mid sentence, he had his mic cut. No National Flag waving allowed here. Could you please remove the flags . Theres something slightly surreal about this day, this week of goodbyes here in brussels, and thats because the day after brexit day, we enter the transition period. So, yes, legally we have left the European Union, but while we are sorting out a new trade deal, practically, things stay the same paying into the eu budget, accepting laws made here inside the European Parliament, but we will no longer have a seat here at the Decision Making table. That is a lot of voices to lose. For some uk meps today, even emptying their post box at the European Parliament was a symbolic event. It is a disaster, its a huge disaster. Europe is not going to go away. We are going to have to trade with them. We will come on holiday and we will move around and we will drive around. The regulations will be made here, in this house, but there will be no British Voice standing up for the uk when those regulations are made. Tonight, Scottish National party meps bid a tuneful, tea rful farewell to the European Parliament. Music flower of scotland. The union flag flies here until friday but, with trade talks just ahead, the eu uk conversation is far from over. Katya adler, bbc news, brussels. Stay with us on bbc news, still to come france is to outlaw the culling of unwanted male chicks by the end of next year as part of new Animal Welfare measures. The shuttle challenger exploded soon after lift off. There were seven astronauts on board, one of them
a woman school teacher. All of them are believed to have been killed. By the evening, tahrir square, the heart of official cairo, was in the hands of the demonstrators. They were using the word revolution. The earthquake brought down buildings in seconds. Tonight, the search for any survivors has an increasing desperation about it as the hours passed. The government is a family in control of the entire republic of uganda. Survivors of auschwitz have been commemorating the 40th anniversary of the liberation. They toured the crematoria and the gas chambers and relived the horrifying experiences. Welcome back. Very glad to have you with us. This is bbc news. The latest headlines the World Health Organization has warned the entire world needs to take action to stop the spread of the new coronavirus which began in the chinese city of wuhan. The white house has warned president trumps former National Security advisor that his controversial new book cant be published unless he deletes classified information. France is to outlaw the culling of unwanted male chicks by the year 2021, as part of wider Animal Welfare reforms. Currently, male chicks are killed on an industrial scale because they dont lay eggs and are often not wanted for meat. This report from rich preston. You may find some of it upsetting. About 7 billion mail checks are killed around the world each year. It is common practice in the food industry. Mail checks dont grow as quickly as female
ones and so arent considered useful for their meat and, of course, they dont lay eggs. They are either gassed or sent to high speed grinders. Now francis says it will put an end to the practice. Translation certain practices today may be considered shocking to our fellow citizens. Ourfarmers do not do these things out of pleasure. Were going to publish the regulations in the next few weeks to ban all painful practices in Animal Husbandry stop by the move will make france one of the first countries to ban the culling of male chicks. As already banned in switzerland and germany is only allowing it to continue temporarily until a new measure is found. It is hoped techniques will be developed to allow the sex of a cheque to be determined before it hatches. Making culling no longer necessary. In Animal Rights activists say the moves dont go far enough, highlighting that there have been no promises to improve slaughterhouse conditions or move away from intensive animal
farming. Rich preston, bbc news. Astronomers have revealed never before seen images of the sun and theyve got closer than ever before. The striking High Resolution images of the suns surface were captured by a solar telescope in hawaii. What looks here like a collection of gold nuggets is actually, each one, roughly the size of texas. For more on this im joined by the director of the inouye solar telescope project, thomas rimmele. Thank you very much indeed for talking to us. Give us an idea how unusual, different, interesting this is. Well, what you are looking at are the first images of what is the largest and most powerful solar telescope in the world. What you are seeing our convection cells on the solar surface. That is where hot plasma rises and cools off and drops back down beneath the surface. And as part of the motion magnetic
fields are generated and you see those in the images as little bright features, little break points which, for the first time, we have been able to resolve at their intrinsic scale. And that scale is extraordinary, isnt it . Obviously you knew what you are trying to get. When you first saw the images what was your reaction . 0h, saw the images what was your reaction . Oh, i wasjust saw the images what was your reaction . 0h, iwasjust very, very happy. We have spent 25 yea rs of very happy. We have spent 25 years of work on this telescope. A whole team of engineers and scientists have basically put their lifes work into this and seeing the images was the reward after all this work. We were just very, very happy. So, in more detail, what are the images telling you . These images let us resolve the Magnetic Fields which the sun generates on these very small scales, the size of manhattan. And we are looking at those from 93 million miles away. What we really want to
accomplish with this telescope is to precisely measure the Magnetic Field, not only on the surface of the sun, but also in the upper atmosphere, in particular in the corona of the sun, so the corona is the outer atmosphere of the sun that you can see with your naked eye during an eclipse. What we currently cannot do is measure the Magnetic Field in the corona. And this telescope will let us do that. Thats incredibly important to us because the sun generates this immense amount of energy and stores it in the Magnetic Field that sometimes becomes unstable and leads to solar eruptions, flares, coronal mass ejections that impact us very much here on earth, power grid failures, communication failures, satellites can be taken out by solar storms. So were very much in fully understanding the physics behind the solar
Magnetic Field. Yes, on the particular point, other specific things that these images make you think we need to know much more about this . Yes, as ive mentioned, we have to measure the Magnetic Field. These are the very initial images from this new facility. They indicate that we have achieved the resolution that we we re achieved the resolution that we were looking for, but now with new instrumentation and that is yet to come online, that we will bring online in the next few months, we will be able to precisely prove the Magnetic Field and trace it all the way up field and trace it all the way up into the corona. Thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you. Good luck with all that. The film queen slim has been described as a love letter to the black community. It stars the british actors Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner Smith and has been widely praised by critics. But both actors have missed out on nominations for this years baftas and oscars, prompting yet more concern about a lack of diversity. Our arts editor Will Gompertz met both stars ahead of the movies release in london this week. What made you pick me . I liked your picture. Really . You had this sad look on your face. I felt sorry for you. Daniel kaluuya is slim. Jodie turner smith is queen. They are having a tindr date and its not going that well. So what happens to me . You are going to drop me off and youll go home, i guess. So how come two british actors get to play in an american road movie . It was actually a hindrance in my casting personally, because i think, after they already had daniel, they were like, right, this is really not what we are trying to do. What, two brits . Yeah. You know, that was something that they definitely. Even though now you hear them talking and they are like, we knew it was you from the beginning, but they definitely made us sweat you failed to execute a turn signal back there. Their bad date turns very ugly
when a Police Officer pulls them over in a racially motivated stop and search a fictional scenario that both actors can relate to. You have had experience of white Police Officers hassling you because you are black . Yeah yeah. You are exposed to certain things and certain perspectives. Its not about my blackness, its about other peoples attitude to my blackness. I have nothing to do with it. Ive not done anything. Its none of my business. Its other peoples business, its a narrative thats put on my colour. Toolbox. Queen slim is one of several critically acclaimed films with black or asian leads in contention for this years baftas and oscars which failed to receive a nomination in the main acting categories, leading to widespread criticism of a lack of diversity in the selections made by both the british and american film academies. There is clearly a problem, but thats. Its a shame. The thing that is more disappointing is feeling like people in those organisations that make those decisions perhaps didnt
even look at the movie, because thats really what you want, for people to just watch it, to see these stories. I make films to connect to people, to empower people that feel oppressed. Do you know what im saying . Someone thats going every day to work, it makes their day better. Theyve got something to come home to. They want to pay a ticket, pay their money that they earned. Thats what i do it for. Other peoples perceptions and if they want to recognise it, sometimes its out of your control. And that brings us back to the film. Are you crazy . Get back in the car in which a blind date spirals out of control, leading to a 2ist century take on the classic outlaw movie. Will gompertz, bbc news. The swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has applied to trademark her name to stop people impersonating her. The 17 year old has also registered her fridays for future movement, the banner under which she first started protesting outside the Swedish Parliament every friday, instead of attending school. Shes also announced plans to set up a non profit
foundation, promoting sustainability and mental health. For the first time, berlin zoo has unveiled a pair of twin pandas to the public. Meng xiang and meng yuan are both five months old. Theyre the first panda cubs born at a german zoo which probably explains why their names mean long awaited dream and dream come true. Theyve been nicknamed pit and paule by their keepers. Just very briefly, that manias again, a reminderand very serious things, more foreign citizens due to leave the chinese city of wuhan as the number of those infected with this potentially deadly coronavirus is still increasing. Authorities that are now saying i75 increasing. Authorities that are now saying 175 people are dead, there are another 1700 confirmed cases i70. Dead, there are another 1700 confirmed cases 170. Thank you for watching. Hello there. We started off this week with a wintry flavour, cold or all of us. But wednesday brought a day of contrast. It was a glorious afternoon across much of england and wales with some sunshine coming through, as you can see in bedford, and a little milder with it. Different story further north as was awesome heavy, persistent rain. Some areas of scotland seeing over a couple of inches in a 24 hour period. That weather front continues to drift its way steadily north. Weve got a weaker area of low pressure pushing its way in from the south west. But one unifying factor as we move into thursday and friday is a south westerly flow will drive mild air right across the country. So wednesday morning, we saw temperatures hovering around the freezing mark. But thursday morning,
when it really looks as though it will be a different story, were going to start of mild, 7 or 8 degrees widely across the country. So yes, its a mild start, but rather cloudy, grey, drab one, unfortunately. There will be some rain, some heavier and persistent, moving through western scotland to the north. And then behind it with quite a lot of cloud, thick enough for the odd spot or two drizzle, like patchy rain, misty, murky weather conditions, maybe some dense fog lingering in the far south west. Lighter winds to the south, but always strongest the further north and west with that rain. But look at this. These temperatures widely double digits. 10 14 degrees our afternoon highs. As we move out of thursday into friday, unfortunately, yet again, theres another frontal system that is going to push in from the west and thats going to bring more wet weather with it. Now, the heaviest of the rain is likely to be through Western Areas for a time on wednesday. And as it pushes its way steadily eastwards, itll weaken, fragment to showers into the afternoon. But we are likely to see more persistent rain just clinging onto the north west of the great glen, however the wind direction is still a south westerly, still mild for all, 8 14 the high. As we move out of friday, for the start of the weekend, unfortunately it looks as they were stuck in repeat. Low pressure never too far away, but weather fronts
crossing the uk, they either way, a brief respite before the next weather front which is in. So it does look likely that it is going to stay pretty u nsettled. So this is our city forecast for both saturday and sunday. Its going to be a case of showers or longer spells of rain, but its still on the mild side for this time of year, with temperatures widely into double figures. Take care. This is bbc news, the headlines the Chinese Government says at least 170 people are now confirmed to have died from the coronavirus outbreak, with more than 7,000 confirmed cases of the virus. The World Health Organization will meet later on thursday to decide whether to declare a Global Health emergency. The white house has warned president trumps former National Security advisor, john bolton, that his new book cannot be published unless classified information is deleted. Mr boltons lawyer said nothing in it should be considered classified. Comments in the book have been seized upon by supporters of president trumps impeachment. The European Parliament has ratified the brexit transition agreement. It was the final hurdle before the United Kingdom leaves the European Union on friday after 47 years. Negotiations will now begin on a final agreement, which the British Government wants concluded before the end of the year
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.