Hello and welcome to bbc news. The chinese authorities are struggling to control an outpouring of public grief and anger at the way they treated a doctor who tried to warn the world about the dangers of coronavirus. Dr li wenliang died after contracting the illness while treating infected patients in the city of wuhan. Controls and restrictions are increasing across china where almost 720 people have now died. Our correspondent, jon sudworth, reports from beijing. Shouting in some cities, those suspected of being sick are being rounded up, with multiple unverified videos showing the quarantine squads at work. Its all adding to a growing sense of disbelief and dread. I dont want to be taken away like that, a child can be heard saying. Screaming but now the fear is turning to anger. Doctor li wenliang was one of the first to report signs of the new strange virus, but his online posts were censored and the police made him sign this confession, along with seven others, for spreading rumours. His death from the virus in this wuhan hospital has prompted an outpouring on social media. The hashtag i want freedom of speech viewed almost 2 million times before being blocked. Doctor li was the first whistle blower, but no one cared, this man tells me. Are you angry . Yes, a bit, she says, but more hopeless if theyd listened to him the situation would be better now. On a beijing riverbank, we find a tribute to the doctor. Goodbye, li wenliang, it says. There can be no doubting just how sensitive a moment this now is for chineses ruling communist party. The already simmering concern about the mishandling of the crisis exploding into a public wave of anger and grief. In the death of a doctor, the systemic failings have been laid bare. The response, though, is likely to be more censorship. These videos of wuhans hospitals, the conditions inside, and the people queuing for masks were taken by a blogger chen quishi. I spoke to him earlier this week. Whats your thoughts about how long you will be able to continue providing independent reporting from wuhan . I am not sure, he says. The censorships so strict, peoples accounts are being closed down if they share my content. His family say hes now disappeared. In this Public Health disaster, there are real political risks and the orders are already being sent out maintain stability, tighten control. John sudworth, bbc news, beijing. Earlier william schaffner, professor of Infectious Diseases at the Vanderbilt University in tennessee told me how he thinks china is managing the spread of the virus. I think it has been one of the largest social experiments in history to so strictly enforced the quarantine of 50 million people. The whole goal is to interrupt the transmission of this virus to reduce its transmission so that fewer people in wuhan become infected, fewer people outside of wuhan and china, and of course if you were exploitations to other countries around the world. It is most severe. I would hope that the severity results in a reduction in transmission. Do you expected to work . |j reduction in transmission. Do you expected to work . I expect it to work some degree . It will not be like a switch turning offa not be like a switch turning off a light. But i certainly think by confining people, by reducing the interaction of persons with other people, some reduction in transmission will result. And we should assume, i hope, see a reduction in cases and reduction in exploitations of this virus to other countries. Then perhaps they will ease up on these restrictions. There have been few reported infections in Mainland China in the past two days. Is it too soon to read anything into that very short figure . Caution, course and perhaps it is just due to a reduction in testing capacity. We will have to see whether this is sustained and whether it is validated. So as we say, my fingers are crossed, hoping for the best. Professor, what other measures would you recommend china to take . At the moment they need to devote an awful lot of resources for caring for these sick. It has been widely reported that people who are ill are not receiving sufficient care. That is where a great deal of attention needs now to be directed. In order to gain the confidence of the country and for humanitarian reasons. Professor william schaffner. President trump has sacked two senior officials who gave testimony during the recent impeachment inquiry. Process, i should say. The Us Ambassador to the european union, Gordon Sondland issued a statement saying he had been told he was being recalled from his post. Earlier, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman was escorted out of the white house following his dismissal. Two days after President Trumps equitable, two equitable, to men who lost theirjobs. He said there were Strings Attached to a possible visit to the white house by the ukrainian president. Was there a quid pro quo . As i testified previously, with regard to the requested white house call in the white house meeting, the a nswer the white house meeting, the answer is yes. I say to the ambassador, i want nothing, answer is yes. I say to the ambassador, iwant nothing, i wa nt ambassador, iwant nothing, i want nothing, i want nope no quid pro quo, tell president zelensky to do the right thing. So heres my answer, i want nothing. But ambassador solimans testimony had raised doubts whether trump was telling the truth. Now hes out ofa telling the truth. Now hes out of a job. It follows the sacking of the tenant colonel Alexander Vindman, who was listening in on the president s july phone call with his ukrainian counterpart. He said he was concerned about what he heard and that the conversation had been improper. He said that colonel vindman was asked to leave for telling the truth and the most powerful person in the world had decided to exact revenge. A day after being acquitted by the senate, President Trump vented his fury at those who pursued impeachment charges against him. His press secretary said he had been treated horribly and many people should pay for that. Looks like the recriminations have started. Peter bowes, bbc news. The Democratic Party president ial contenders have moved on to the state of New Hampshire following this weeks iowa caucuses, in which Pete Buttigieg narrowly beat senator Bernie Sanders after a long count. During a live televised debate, mr buttigieg was the target of nearly all his rivals with senator sanders accusing the mayor of relying on big donors to finance his campaign. For his part, mr buttigieg said he was the only one on stage who was not a millionaire. Our correspondent jane obrien is in New Hampshire for the debate. This has been a very spirited debate. Wejust this has been a very spirited debate. We just saw amy klobuchar, the senator from minnesota, fighting for her political life. She is way down in the polls at the moment. This could be her last chance to so she is still a viable candidate. Pete buttigieg, of course he is the amount of the moment. He won in iowa and he is moment. He won in iowa and he is his closest rival Bernie Sanders is doing well in New Hampshire. He is stopping the polls here. So those two have been going head to head. Topping. But the gloves have not really come off in this debate even yet. I think the sense of the party needs to be united, they need to really portray a strong front if they are going to beat donald trump and not alienate the supporters of the under candidates is still the most important thing other additives. So we havent seen the visceral, head to had debates we might have expected given the rising states in this campaign. But even so, states in this campaign. But even so, you states in this campaign. But even so, you know, it has been energetic, passionate at times and voters who want to see their candidates betray themselves in a more personal way, i think well have gotten something to note portray themselves in a more personal way to night. And joe biden got something of a gut punch . At the beginning of the debate he conceded he had a bad time and then went on to say he almost might lose New Hampshire, seeming to acknowledge the fact he is ina seeming to acknowledge the fact he is in a perilous situation. Losing these early primary states is not a winning strategy, so im not quite sure where he was going with that. But for him he has strong support and faith that he has support and faith that he has support among African American voters. So it wouldnt all be overfor him if he didnt do well, but it isnt a good look. What he loses is the confidence of donors was that he needs money more than any of the other candidates, he needs gas. Bernie sanders is out raising him, he has 25 million raised injanuary him, he has 25 million raised in january alone. So joe him, he has 25 million raised injanuary alone. Sojoe biden has a lot to catch up. Gina brya nt has a lot to catch up. Gina bryant in New Hampshire. You can keep up to date with everything in the race to challenge President Trump on oui challenge President Trump on our website. Youll also find a feature on whos leading in the polls, and a simple guide to the often bafflingly confusing us primaries. Thats all at bbc. Com news or you can download the bbc news app. Lets get some of the days other news now the United Nations is warning that a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in the province of idlib in syria. Aid agencies estimate that nearly 600,000 people have been forced from their homes in the past two months. Syrian Government Forces backed by russia continue to seize ground from the rebels. A record High Temperature of 18. 3 celsius has been logged on the continent of antarctica. The reading was taken on thursday, on the continents north west tip one of the fastest warming regions on earth. The temperature is being verified by the World Meteorological organization. Votes in the federal election for ireland are taking place. A senior United Nations envoy says spain is utterly failing people in poverty. Philip alston had a 12 day tour of the country. He highlighted a housing crisis of what he called stunning proportions. He said a completely inadequate social Protection System left large numbers in poverty by design. Prince harry and his wife meghan have appeared for their firstjoint Public Engagement since quitting as working members of the British Royal family. Harry gave a speech at this hotel in miami at an event organised by american bankjpmorgan chase. The fee if there was one has not been disclosed. Do stay with us on bbc news. Still to come heading for the sun the new orbiter thats set to probe the burning heart of our solar system. Theres mr mandela. Mr nelson mandela, a free man, taking his first steps into a new south africa. Irans spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini has said hes passed a death sentence on salman rushdie, the british author of a book which many muslims say is blasphemous. The people of haiti have flocked to church to give thanks for the ousting of their former president , ba by doc duvalier. Because of his considerable value as a stallion, shergar was kept in a special, secure box in the stud farms central block. Shergar was driven away in a horse box the thieves had brought with them. There stepped down from the plane a figure in mourning. Elizabeth ii, queen of this realm and of all her other realms and territories. Head of the commonwealth, defender of the faith. This is bbc news, the latest headlines. Warranting this is bbc news, the latest headlines. Warra nting squads this is bbc news, the latest headlines. Warranting squads in china are detaining people suspected of being infected by the coronavirus as authorities confirm more than 700 deaths. Lets stay with our main story now and more than 60 people have tested positive for the coronavirus on board a cruise ship injapan. There are almost 4000 people on board the diamond princess, which is quarantined in yokohama. Passengers have been confined to their cabins for the next fortnight. Heres our medical correspondent, fergus walsh. Some passengers have called it a floating prison. Three days into the 2 week quarantine of japan, passengers are being allowed to exercise on deck wearing face masks. But dozens on the diamond princess have been removed to hospital for treatment. Among them, alan steele, on his honeymoon. Hes among nearly 80 british people on board. 41 additional passengers have been found positive tested for the coronavirus, one of whom is a friend of ours, on honeymoon, who has been. Who was going to be split from his wife, you know, on honeymoon. He was going to be taken to a medicalfacility and she will have to remain on board. Theres still a lot we dont know about this virus and the next few weeks will be crucial in determining whether a pandemic, a global epidemic, can be averted. Its spread through droplets, face to face contact within a couple of metres of an infected person. The incubation period is up to 14 days. It now looks less likely that people spread the infection before they have symptoms. The virus causes a fever and cough. The majority have mild symptoms, but it can cause breathing difficulties and viral pneumonia, as lung tissue becomes inflamed. Most of those whove died are elderly, with Underlying Health problems. But not all. Doctor li wenliang, among the first to raise the alarm about the new virus, was just 34. He wouldve risked repeated infections at close quarters to patients. If a large amount of virus is coming in all at the same time, in the case of a Health Care Worker working very closely with infected patients, it could be that the amount of virus in the body increases very, very rapidly before the immune system has the chance to deal with it, and so that could lead to a rapid onset of severe disease. The World Health Organization has warned of a global shortage of face masks and other protective equipment, in part because people who dont need them are buying them. The world is facing severe disruption in the market for personal protective equipment. Demand is up to 100 times higher than normal and prices are up to 20 times higher. A final evacuation flight of british nationals from wuhan, like this one last week, is due to arrive on sunday. Passengers will then be taken to a quarantine facility in milton keynes. Fergus walsh, bbc news. Botswana has raised more than 2 million from its first auction of licences to hunt elephants since lifting a ban last year. The auction allowed companies registered locally to bid for the right to kill 10 elephants. The government says the hunting will take place in the areas where there has been the most conflict between elephants and humans. Conservationists fear it could fuel poaching as nomsa maseko reports. Botswana, home to 130,000 elephants, more than any other country. With this years hunting season less than two months away, the government has sold seven licenses for a kill of ten elephants apiece in controlled hunting areas, and hunters will be allowed to export the trophies. Bidders in the Online Auction who must become companies registered and botswana are expected to each put down a refundable deposit of 18,000 usd. Shortly after coming into office in 2018, president Mokgweetsi Masisi revoked the hunting ban, which came into force in 2014. He argued that with an increasing human population, elephants were threatening peoples lives and crops in rural villages. But animal activists have condemned the move. They say hunting is not an effective long term population control method. Many Rural Communities believe a return to commercial hunting will help keep the elephant population away from their villages and bringing much needed income and place is not suitable for a high end tourism. Nomsa maseko, bbc news. The former head of a top Us Investment firm has been sentenced to nine months in prison for his role in the Us College Admissions scandal. Douglas hodge paid nearly a Million Dollars in bribes to get four of his seven children into top us colleges as fake athletic recruits. Dozens of high profile defendants have been indicted for allegedly cheating and bribing to get their children into elite universities. This weekend, nasa and the European Space agency will launch a mission aimed at giving us a better understanding of the sun. The spacecraft will come so close to the sun that special measures have been taken to make sure it can withstand the heat, as our science correspondent Rebecca Morelle reports. Incredible images of the sun, its turbulent surface revealed in fiery detail. The view of our star is about to get much better. This is solar orbiter, it is jam packed with instruments and will take images from closer to the sun then any spacecraft has before. Temperatures will reach 500 degrees which has meant using of unexpected materials. Obviously it gets extremely hot. We had to develop special technologies and coatings for the spacecraft because the environment is going to be so hostile. One of the coatings we had to develop was based on baked animal bones and that is at the front of the heat shield to stop it from getting too hot. Solar orbiter has a long and difficult journey ahead. After leaving the earth, it will take about two years to get into prime position, orbiting closer than the planet mercury to the sun, but every time the spacecraft passes behind our star, it will lose contact for weeks and if anything goes wrong, it could be burned to a crisp. But gradually the spacecraft will lift its position, letting us see the suns poles for the first time. What i love is that you can see the fantastic structure on the site here, a structure that is lofted up into the atmosphere which we call the prominence. At the Royal Astronomical society, solar records reveal dramatic activity, which can impact us. Its called space weather, and can knock out navigation and communication satellites and cause power failures. In the same ways we have terrestrial weather in the earths atmosphere, we have space weather in the suns atmosphere. So, we are excited about getting up close and personal with the sun so we can understand the origins of space weather and ultimately develop our physical knowledge so we can better predict space weather in the future. The spacecrafts instruments will be switched on soon after launch and it will take years for all of their results to come back. Only then will we be able to truly shed light on our star. Rebecca morelle, bbc news. Hollywood is preparing for the film industrys biggest night of the year, the oscars on sunday. But like other award ceremonies this season, its facing criticism for failing to recognise people of colour. Among the omissions is the director of the acclaimed film harriet, a biography of harriet tubman, who helped free hundreds of slaves in the american south. Our arts editor, will gompertz, has been to meet the director, kasey lemmons. God was watching but my feet was my own. Running, bleeding, climbing, nearly drowned. Nothing to eat for days and days but i made it. I thinkjust having a black woman in the title role has been challenging, you know, for hollywood, you know. You be ready. But why is it challenging . I think that just believing that women in leading roles, women, not to mention black women, can be. Can really be a box office draw, a woman led picture, you know, can make money at the box office and be successful. Her film harriet did just that, although it did take a very long time for the movie about the famous 19th century abolitionist to get made. In hollywood, i learned that, actually, people are frightened easily. Intimidated is the word i should use. People are very intimidated of black women. I need thoughts here, its almost like, i need ideas. Would you say hollywood is intrinsically racist and sexist . Well, yeah, of course, i mean, we have to look at it, its very provable. I think people are unconsciously racist. Just hold on. And suck in. A feeling that hollywood perpetuates racial stereotypes goes back a long way, with classics such as gone with the wind caricaturing a black woman as a deferential domestic servant, known as mammy. So she would often be this sassy black woman with a kind of broken vernacular, so a lot of honey child and things like that. Hattie mcdaniel won an oscar for her performance. That was 80 years ago. Cynthia erivo could win for playing harriet on sunday at an Academy Awards where shes the only person of colour to be nominated in the acting categories. Its embarrassing, you know . Hollywood, that is supposed to be, you know, this is our dreams, this is our best self, this is our most aspirational self that we are presenting and, hopefully, related to who we really are in the time capsule of this moment, so its bizarre, its weird and its embarrassing. It does take time to change but the feeling here as we approach sundays Academy Awards is, for the oscars, that time really is up. Will gompertz, bbc news, los angeles. And we will bring you the scenes from the oscars on monday. A man has been placed under judicial investigation in paris for stealing a mural by the street artist banksythe mural, depicting a masked rat weilding a box cutter, was taken in the middle of one night last september. Two men used a metal cutter to remove it from the back of a car park entry sign just outside the Pompidou Centre where it had been put up a year earlier. Police arrested three men in connection with the theft earlier this week, and have now released two of them. The mural itself has not been recovered. You can reach me on twitter. Im jamesbbcnews. Hello there. Weve got some very strong winds indeed coming our way this weekend. All courtesy of storm ciara, which will arrive on sunday. Thats when we are going to see the strongest winds, with met Office Warnings already in force. These could yet be updated through the weekend so make sure you stay in touch with the forecast over the course of the weekend. Now, storm ciara itself will develop under an incredibly strong jet stream, one of the strongest atlanticjet streams ive seen, with the winds in the jet stream 250 miles an hour. That is what will make this intense area of low pressure on sunday, which is storm ciara. Before we get there, over the next few hours, we will see the winds pick up as well. It will become quite blowy. A band of rain pushes east in intensity, followed by some blustery showers across western areas. Because it has been quite a windy start on saturday morning. Temperatures between 4 8 celsius. The rest of saturday, therell be a fair bit of sunshine for a time, especially across england and wales, but further north across ireland and scotland, the cloud will thicken through the afternoon. Outbreaks of rain and hill snow in scotland and strong gusts of wind. Northern ireland and scotland. They could reach up to 70 miles an hour. Strong enough to cause some disruption. From there it becomes very windy overnight as well across england and wales. A band of rain pushes its way in. Storm ciara doesnt really start arriving until later on sunday. Lets take a look at ciara, here it is on the pressure charts. You can see how tightly packed the isobars are on this weather system, always a sign of strong winds. The strongest winds will come along in two batches, but really, it is going to be windy on sunday, pretty much across the whole of the uk, with gusts for most of us in the range of Something Like 60 80 miles an hour. We are going to see some impacts, some disruptive weather, on sunday. The strongest winds for scotland, along through the afternoon, certainly on the southern flank of this area of low pressure. That is where we will see the sign of strong winds. Notice how that comes through, especially through the central belt, late in the day on sunday. That could cause problems. Further south for england and wales we have got a cold this is bbc news. The headlines quarantine squads in wuhan in china are detaining people suspected of being infected by the new coronavirus. And the authorities in beijing have banned large social gatherings. The number of deaths from the epidemic has risen to more than 700. That surpasses the toll from the sars outbreak almost two decades ago. Democrat Party Candidates vying take on President Trump have held their latest debate in New Hampshire ahead of the primary election to be held on tuesday. The current front runners are mayor Pete Buttigieg and senator Bernie Sanders. Two key witnesses in Donald Trumps impeachment process have been removed from their government posts. Lieutenant colonel Alexander Vindman has been sacked from his white housejob. The Us Ambassador to the european union, Gordon Sondland issued a statement saying he was being recalled from his post
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.