Police in London on Monday walked through an area where police killed a man who wounded two people in a knife attack the day before.
Photo:
facundo arrizabalaga/Shutterstock
LONDON—The British government said it would introduce emergency legislation to prevent the automatic early release of people convicted of terror offenses, a day after police shot and killed a man recently freed from jail who wounded two people in a knife attack.
Sudesh Amman,
20 years old, had recently been released from prison after serving part of his sentence for distributing terrorism-related material. He was wearing a fake suicide vest while carrying out the attack, London’s Metropolitan Police said.
He was the second such offender on early release to carry out a knife attack in London in just over two months.
Justice Secretary
Robert Buckland
told the House of Commons that emergency legislation would be introduced “to ensure an end to terrorist offenders getting released automatically having served half of their sentence with no check or review.” The new law would also apply to people currently serving their sentences, he said.
British police shot and killed a man who had been recently released from prison after he stabbed two people. It was the second time in a few months that a person convicted of terrorism-related charges attacked people in London after being released. Photo: Ray Tang/Zuma Press
All terrorist offenders would have to serve at least two-thirds of their sentences, and any early release would need to be agreed to by the parole board, which would be strengthened so it could deal more effectively with the risks convicted terrorists posed to public safety, he said.
“We face an unprecedented situation of severe gravity,” he said.
The government announced a review of the automatic early release policy after the knife attack in late November near London Bridge, in which two people and the attacker were killed. But it wasn’t clear at the time that the changes that were being proposed after that attack would apply to existing prisoners.
That attacker,
Usman Khan,
28, had been released from prison 11 months earlier under a set of conditions that included an internet ban, a curfew and limitations on his movements and meetings. He carried a GPS tag allowing authorities to track his whereabouts.
Earlier Monday, Prime Minister
Boris Johnson
described it as an anomaly that some people convicted of terror offenses were still being freed under automatic early release without any kind of scrutiny or parole system.
Mr. Amman had been sentenced in December 2018 to three years and four months in prison for distributing terrorist information, after having already served part of the sentence, and was released early. Armed police were able to respond quickly on Sunday because they were trailing him.
Police said Mr. Amman, who had been released from prison on Jan. 23, had stolen a knife from a shop. The time taken for him to enter the shop and start his attack was about 60 seconds. Police shot and killed him after a further roughly 60 seconds.
Officials in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe have acknowledged the growing security challenge stretched counterterrorism services face from people convicted of terror offenses returning into the community after serving their sentences, a parallel test to one posed by jihadists returning from Middle East war zones. Sentences for terror offenses are generally shorter across Europe than they are in the U.S.
Prison-reform advocates have argued that longer sentences rarely provide an answer, saying incarceration sometimes only serves to further radicalize individuals. They say resources need to be focused on effective deradicalization programs.
People like Mr. Khan—originally sentenced for his part in a bomb plot focused on the London Stock Exchange and other targets—also present a challenge to the legal system. He carried out his attack while attending a conference on deradicalization, having convinced the authorities that he had recanted his terrorist views.
LONDON — A man was shot by police officers after a number of people were stabbed in South London on Sunday, in what the authorities described as a “terrorist-related” incident.
The conditions of the man and those stabbed were not immediately clear.
The Metropolitan Police wrote on Twitter on Sunday that they believed that “a number of people have been stabbed” and that the man had been shot by armed officers in Streatham, about five miles south of Westminster.
#INCIDENT A man has been shot by armed officers in #Streatham. At this stage it is believed a number of people have been stabbed. The circumstances are being assessed; the incident has been declared as terrorist-related. Please follow @metpoliceuk for updates
Images on social media showed the body of a man lying on the pavement while at least two officers pointed guns at him.
London was hit by a terrorist attack as recently as November, when a radicalized man was shot dead by the police after he killed two people near London Bridge.
The current terrorism-related threat level in Britain is classified as substantial, meaning that an attack is “likely,” according to the country’s Security Service.
In a message released on social media an hour before the UK's departure, the prime minister said: "For many people this is an astonishing moment of hope, a moment they thought would never come.
"And there are many of course who feel a sense of anxiety and loss."
He said some had worried the political "wrangle" would not end but it was his job to take the country forward.
How did the UK mark the moment?
Brexit parties were held in pubs and social clubs across the UK as the country counted down to its official departure.
Hundreds gathered in Parliament Square to celebrate Brexit, singing patriotic songs and cheering speeches from leading Brexiteers, including Nigel Farage.
The Brexit Party leader said: "Let us celebrate tonight as we have never done before.
"This is the greatest moment in the modern history of our great nation."
Pro-EU demonstrators earlier staged a march in Whitehall to bid a "fond farewell" to the union - and anti-Brexit rallies and candlelit vigils were held in Scotland.
Police in Whitehall arrested four men and also charged one man with criminal damage and being drunk and disorderly, while in Glasgow one man was arrested.
Meanwhile, other symbolic moments on a day of mixed emotions included:
The Union flag being removed from the European Union institutions in Brussels
The Cabinet meeting in Sunderland, the first city to declare in favour of Brexit when the 2016 results were announced
A light show illuminating 10 Downing Street and Union flags lining The Mall
A 50p coin to mark the occasion entering circulation
In Northern Ireland, the campaign group Border Communities Against Brexit staged a series of protests in Armagh, near to the border with the Irish Republic.
The Irish border - now the UK's land border with the EU - was a major sticking point in the Brexit divorce talks.
At 23:00 GMT, Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted a picture of the EU flag, adding: "Scotland will return to the heart of Europe as an independent country - #LeaveALightOnForScotland".
Ms Sturgeon is calling for a new referendum on Scottish independence, arguing that Brexit is a "material change in circumstances".
Speaking in Cardiff, Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford said Wales, which voted to leave the EU, remained a "European nation".
Labour MP Hilary Benn, who chairs the Brexit select committee and backed Remain, said he was "sad last night... but we have to accept it".
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the UK was always a "reluctant" EU nation, adding: "We joined late and we left early."
What now? It's happened.
A dreary night didn't discourage those celebrating in Parliament Square. We wake this morning out of the European Union. But we follow their rules until the end of the year, without a say.
We are separate after more than 40 years, but remember much of the status quo will hold for now - the UK and the EU, the awkward couple, finally divorced - but still sharing a house and the bills.
But what the prime minister hails as a new era, a bright new dawn, starts months of hard bargaining with our neighbours across the Channel.
The UK's requests: a free trade agreement, cooperation on security, and new arrangements for fishing are just some of the vital arguments that lie ahead.
UK citizens will notice few immediate changes now that the country is no longer in the European Union.
Most EU laws will continue to be in force - including the free movement of people - until 31 December, when the transition period comes to an end.
The UK is aiming to sign a permanent free trade agreement with the EU, along the lines of the one the EU has with Canada.
But European leaders have warned that the UK faces a tough battle to get a deal by that deadline.
Former Brexit Secretary David Davis said agreeing a trade deal was "not a charitable exercise, this is an exercise of both sides recognising their own best interests".
"From today, we are their [the EU's] biggest export market," he told the Today programme.
What's the reaction in Europe?
In an open letter to the British people, French President Emmanuel Macron said he was "deeply sad" but: "The channel has never managed to separate our destinies; Brexit will not do so, either."
He also defended the way France acted in the negotiations, saying neither the French nor anyone else in the EU was "driven by a desire for revenge or punishment".
Meanwhile, the European Parliament's Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt said he would "look after your star and work to ensure the EU is a project you'll want to be a part of again soon".
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has said Britain and Brussels will fight for their interests in trade talks.
She paid tribute to UK citizens who had "contributed to the European Union and made it stronger" and said the UK's final day in the EU was "emotional".
Whilst never the most enthusiastic member, the UK was part of the European project for almost half a century.
On a personal level, EU leaders tell me they'll miss having the British sense of humour and no-nonsense attitude at their table.
If they were to be brutally honest they'd have admitted they'll mourn the loss of our not-insignificant contribution to the EU budget too.
But now we've left the "European family" (as Brussels insiders sometimes like to call the EU) and as trade talks begin, how long will it take for warm words to turn into gritted teeth?
European Council President Charles Michel warned: "The more the UK will diverge from the EU standards, the less access to the single market it will have."
Mairead McGuinness, the vice president of the European Parliament, said she fears progress to agree a trade deal - which Mr Johnson hopes to secure by December 2021 - "might be left to the very last minute".
"Normally in trade negotiations we're trying to come together," she said. "For the first time we're going try and negotiate a trade agreement where somebody wants to pull away from us. I can't get my head around that and I think it's going to be quite complicated."
What about the US?
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said he was "pleased" the UK and EU had agreed a Brexit deal and the US would continue to build its "strong, productive, and prosperous relationship with the UK".
Washington's ambassador to the UK, Woody Johnson, said Brexit had been "long supported" by President Donald Trump.
How did we get here?
Media playback is unsupported on your device
Britain joined what was then European Economic Community on 1 January, 1973, at the third attempt. Two years later the country voted by an overwhelming majority to remain in the bloc in the first nationwide referendum.
Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron held another referendum in June 2016, amid growing pressure from his own MPs and Nigel Farage's UK Independence Party.
Mr Cameron led the campaign to stay in the EU but lost by the narrow margin of 52% to 48% to the Leave campaign, fronted by fellow Conservative Boris Johnson.
Mr Cameron's successor as prime minister, Theresa May, repeatedly failed to get her version of an EU withdrawal agreement passed by Parliament and was replaced by Mr Johnson, who also failed to get his plans through.
Mr Johnson managed to secure an early general election in December last year, which he won with an 80-seat majority on a promise to "get Brexit done".
The PM's EU withdrawal deal was approved by MPs just before Christmas, and the bill became law earlier this year.
Are you taking part in any farewell events? Share your pictures and video by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:
Challenges for travel and leisure stocks, slower economic growth and a weaker Chinese yuan are among the new market implications investors are dealing with as the new coronavirus spreads rapidly. Photo: Bloomberg/Qilai Shen
By
Erin Mendell
HONG KONG—The U.K. and Russia each reported their first cases of the dangerous coronavirus, while other countries—and
Delta Air Lines Inc.
and
American Airlines Group Inc.
—moved to limit air traffic with China as the number of people infected there approached 10,000.
Pakistan, a strategic ally of China, said it would ban all commercial air travel to and from mainland China on Friday, a day after Italy suspended flights to Taiwan and China, including the territory of Hong Kong, until April 28. Russia, too, said it would suspend certain flights to China, excluding the regular flights by its flagship carrier,
Aeroflot.
The Latest on the Virus
Delta and American are halting flights to China.
The number of people infected surpassed SARS.
More countries banned or limited flights to mainland China.
Meanwhile, Singapore’s Health Ministry said it would expand its coronavirus-related entry restrictions to include any visitors who had traveled to mainland China in the previous 14 days and deny visas to all Chinese passport holders, beginning late Saturday. Previously, Singapore had refused entry to those who had traveled to Hubei, the central Chinese province where the virus first originated, or had their passport issued there.
Atlanta-based Delta and American, based in Fort Worth, Texas, said they would halt flights from the U.S. to China.
The moves came hours after the World Health Organization and the U.S. elevated their coronavirus alerts, as the death toll from the pneumonia-causing virus rose to 213 late Thursday, up from 170 a day earlier, and the number of illnesses surpassed 9,500.
Related Video
In a news conference Thursday, the director-general of the World Health Organization called the coronavirus outbreak “unprecedented.” Photo: Jean-Christophe Bott/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
The number of people sickened by the new coronavirus in China now exceeds the global total infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which killed nearly 800 people after emerging from southern China in late 2002 and into 2003.
Russia’s first two coronavirus cases were both Chinese citizens, official Russian news agencies reported, citing the government.
The U.K.’s National Health Service said Friday that its first two confirmed cases were members of the same family in England.
Italy’s decision to halt air travel to China came after a Chinese couple in Rome were confirmed as having the virus. The country also declared a six-month medical state of emergency, which gives its central government extra powers to deal with suspected virus cases quickly and cut through Italian bureaucracy.
China made its first move to repatriate citizens abroad who wanted to return to the country. It arranged planes to bring home people from Hubei province, whose capital city of Wuhan is at the center of the outbreak. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman
Hua Chunying
said Friday that its efforts were prompted by Hubei natives facing “actual difficulties” overseas. She didn’t elaborate.
The impact of the new coronavirus virus has rippled across the globe. People wearing face masks in the U.K., where the first two cases were reported Friday.
Photo:
facundo arrizabalaga/Shutterstock
Xiamen Air, which is majority-owned by
China Southern Airlines Co.,
said it was flying one plane each on Friday to Bangkok and Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia—two popular tourist destinations—to take people to Wuhan. State broadcaster China Central Television reported that a flight operated by
Spring Airlines
was expected to bring 350 people from Tokyo back to Wuhan early Saturday.
Other governments, meantime, were scrambling to extricate their nationals from Wuhan, which has been on lockdown for more than a week as Chinese authorities try to contain the virus’s spread.
The French government has repatriated a few hundred of its citizens from Wuhan, authorities said. They arrived Friday in the south of France, where they will stay for 14 days under medical supervision at a holiday center near Marseille. Six cases of the infection have been identified in the country.
A plane chartered by the U.K. with 110 Britons and citizens of other countries left Wuhan and landed in Britain on Friday, the U.K. government said. The flight was scheduled to continue to Spain after a U.K. stopover.
The U.S. is planning to evacuate more Americans from Wuhan as early as Monday, after an initial flight primarily for staff of the U.S. consulate there departed on Wednesday. That flight carried 210 Americans, stopping in Anchorage before landing at a military base in Southern California.
As part of China’s efforts to try to prevent the virus’s spread, China’s national railway operator said ticket buyers would need to provide mobile phone numbers for every passenger, starting Saturday—a move that would allow authorities to contact anyone who had been on a train with a potential patient.
In Hong Kong, which has a handful of confirmed cases of the virus, school closures were extended until early March, city Chief Executive
Carrie Lam
said Friday.
On Thursday, the U.S. State Department raised its alert to the highest level, advising Americans in China to consider leaving the country and requesting all nonessential U.S. government personnel postpone travel there. The State Department applies the same “Do Not Travel” advice to Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela.
Before widening it Thursday, the State Department had applied the “Do Not Travel” advice only to Hubei province, while urging Americans to reconsider travel to China more generally.
The State Department advice came after the WHO designated the Wuhan coronavirus a global public-health emergency, indicating that public-health authorities now consider the respiratory illness a significant threat beyond China.
In a statement published late Friday on China’s Foreign Ministry website, Ms. Hua, the ministry spokeswoman, portrayed the U.S. move to raise its travel alert as an expression of ill will.
“Many countries have offered China support in various means. In sharp contrast, certain U.S. officials’ words and actions are neither factual nor appropriate,” Ms. Hua said. “Just as the WHO recommended against travel restrictions, the U.S. rushed to go in the opposite way. Certainly not a gesture of goodwill.”
—Wenxin Fan, Xiao Xiao, Jason Douglas, Waqar Gillani, Ann Simmons, Marcus Walker, Noemie Bisserbe and Feliz Solomon contributed to this article.
Challenges for travel and leisure stocks, slower economic growth and a weaker Chinese yuan are among the new market implications investors are dealing with as the new coronavirus spreads rapidly. Photo: Bloomberg/Qilai Shen
By
Erin Mendell
HONG KONG—The U.K. and Russia each reported their first cases of the dangerous coronavirus, and other countries moved to limit air traffic with China as the number of people infected there approached 10,000.
Pakistan, a strategic ally of China, said it would ban all commercial air travel to and from mainland China on Friday, a day after Italy suspended flights to Taiwan and China, including the territory of Hong Kong, until April 28. Russia, too, said it would suspend certain flights to China, excluding the regular flights by its flagship carrier,
Aeroflot.
Meanwhile, Singapore’s Health Ministry said it would expand its coronavirus-related entry restrictions to include anyone who had traveled to mainland China in the previous 14 days and deny visas to all Chinese passport holders, beginning late Saturday. Previously, Singapore had refused entry to those who had traveled to Hubei, the central Chinese province where the virus first originated, or had their passport issued there.
The moves came hours after the World Health Organization and the U.S. elevated their coronavirus alerts, as the death toll from the pneumonia-causing virus rose to 213 late Thursday, up from 170 a day earlier, and the number of illnesses surpassed 9,500.
Related Video
In a news conference Thursday, the director-general of the World Health Organization called the coronavirus outbreak “unprecedented” and declared a global public-health emergency. Photo: Jean-Christophe Bott/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
The number of people sickened by the new coronavirus in China now exceeds the global total infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which killed nearly 800 people after emerging from southern China in late 2002 and into 2003.
Russia’s first two coronavirus cases were both Chinese citizens, official Russian news agencies reported, citing the government.
The U.K.’s National Health Service said Friday that its first two confirmed cases were members of the same family in England.
Italy’s decision to halt air travel to China came after a Chinese couple in Rome were confirmed as having the virus. The country also declared a six-month medical state of emergency, which gives its central government extra powers to deal with suspected virus cases quickly and cut through Italian bureaucracy.
China made its first move to repatriate citizens abroad who wanted to return to the country. It arranged planes to bring home people from Hubei province, whose capital city of Wuhan is at the center of the outbreak. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman
Hua Chunying
said Friday that its efforts were prompted by Hubei natives facing “actual difficulties” overseas. She didn’t elaborate.
The impact of the new coronavirus virus has rippled across the globe. People wearing face masks in the U.K., where the first two cases were reported Friday.
Photo:
facundo arrizabalaga/Shutterstock
Xiamen Air, which is majority-owned by
China Southern Airlines Co.,
said it was flying one plane each on Friday to Bangkok and Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia—two popular tourist destinations—to take people to Wuhan. State broadcaster China Central Television reported that a flight operated by
Spring Airlines
was expected to bring 350 people from Tokyo back to Wuhan early Saturday.
Other governments, meantime, were scrambling to extricate their nationals from Wuhan, which has been on lockdown for more than a week as Chinese authorities try to contain the virus’s spread.
The French government has repatriated a few hundred of its citizens from Wuhan, authorities said. They arrived Friday in the south of France, where they will stay for 14 days under medical supervision at a holiday center near Marseille. Six cases of the infection have been identified in the country.
A plane chartered by the U.K. with 110 Britons and citizens of other countries left Wuhan and landed in Britain on Friday, the U.K. government said. The flight was scheduled to continue to Spain after a U.K. stopover.
The U.S. is planning to evacuate more Americans from Wuhan as early as Monday, after an initial flight primarily for staff of the U.S. consulate there departed on Wednesday. That flight carried 210 Americans, stopping in Anchorage before landing at a military base in Southern California.
As part of China’s efforts to try to prevent the virus’s spread, China’s national railway operator said ticket buyers would need to provide mobile phone numbers for every passenger, starting Saturday—a move that would allow authorities to contact anyone who had been on a train with a potential patient.
In Hong Kong, which has a handful of confirmed cases of the virus, school closures were extended until early March, city Chief Executive
Carrie Lam
said Friday.
On Thursday, the U.S. State Department raised its alert to the highest level, advising Americans in China to consider leaving the country and requesting all nonessential U.S. government personnel postpone travel there. The State Department applies the same “Do Not Travel” advice to Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela.
Before widening it Thursday, the State Department had applied the “Do Not Travel” advice only to Hubei province, while urging Americans to reconsider travel to China more generally.
The State Department advice came after the WHO designated the Wuhan coronavirus a global public-health emergency, indicating that public-health authorities now consider the respiratory illness a significant threat beyond China.
—Wenxin Fan, Xiao Xiao, Jason Douglas, Waqar Gillani, Ann Simmons, Marcus Walker, Noemie Bisserbe and Feliz Solomon contributed to this article.
The story, published by the Mail on Sunday in April, claimed that a series of photos taken by the Duke of Sussex and posted online to mark Earth Day were misleading, because they didn't make clear that the animals had been tranquilized.
Harry complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation about the accuracy of the story, but the watchdog threw the case out Thursday, saying the newspaper did not breach the organization's code of practice.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the decision.
According to a statement issued by the watchdog, Harry argued the full unedited photos were published on the royal family website in 2016 and have been available for anyone to see. He also said that he posted the photographs on Instagram to raise awareness -- not to show off his wildlife photography skills.
Harry argued the caption made clear that the animals were being relocated as part of conservation efforts, adding that it was not necessary to explicitly state that the animals had been sedated or tethered as this would be understood by readers.
The story in the Mail on Sunday was headlined "Drugged and tethered... what Harry didn't tell you about those awe-inspiring wildlife photos."
The article said that the elephant in the photo had been tethered and that the duke's Instagram followers would have been unable to see a rope around the elephant's legs because of the way the photo was cropped. It added that a spokesperson for Harry had declined to discuss the photos.
They spoke out against what they say is the relentless and aggressive coverage of Meghan specifically, some of which Prince Harry has described as containing "racial undertones."
The couple has launched several lawsuits against British newspapers. Last October, Meghan sued the Mail on Sunday for publishing private letters to her father, which the couple said were selectively edited. Days later Prince Harry sued the owners of The Sun and the Daily Mirror for allegedly hacking his voicemails.
In a lengthy statement at the time, Prince Harry alleged the British tabloid press was waging a campaign against Meghan that mirrored the treatment meted out to his mother, Princess Diana, who was hounded by the paparazzi until her death in 1997.
"I've seen what happens when someone I love is commoditised to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real person," Harry said in October. "I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces."
Challenges for travel and leisure stocks, slower economic growth and a weaker Chinese yuan are among the new market implications investors are dealing with as the new coronavirus spreads rapidly. Photo: Bloomberg/Qilai Shen
By
Erin Mendell
HONG KONG—The U.K. and Russia each reported their first cases of the dangerous coronavirus, and other countries moved to limit air traffic with China as the number of people infected there approached 10,000.
Pakistan, a strategic ally of China, said Friday it would ban all commercial air travel to and from mainland China, a day after Italy suspended flights to China, including the territory of Hong Kong. Russia, too, said it would suspend flights to China from Russia, except for the regular flights by its flagship carrier,
Aeroflot,
to the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, Singapore’s Health Ministry said it would expand its coronavirus-related entry restrictions to include anyone who had traveled to mainland China in the previous 14 days and deny visas to all Chinese passport holders, beginning late Saturday. Previously, Singapore had refused entry to those who had traveled to Hubei, the central Chinese province where the virus first originated, or had their passport issued there.
The moves came hours after the World Health Organization and the U.S. elevated their coronavirus alerts, as the death toll from the pneumonia-causing virus rose to 213 late Thursday, up from 170 a day earlier, and the number of illnesses surpassed 9,500.
Related Video
In a news conference Thursday, the director-general of the World Health Organization called the coronavirus outbreak “unprecedented” and declared a global public-health emergency. Photo: Jean-Christophe Bott/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
The number of people sickened by the new coronavirus in China now exceeds the global total infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which killed nearly 800 people after emerging from southern China in late 2002 and into 2003.
Russia’s first two coronavirus cases were both Chinese citizens, official Russian news agencies reported, citing the government.
The U.K.’s National Health Service said Friday that its first two confirmed cases were members of the same family in England.
Italy’s decision to halt air travel to China came after a Chinese couple in Rome were confirmed as having the virus. The country also declared a six-month medical state of emergency, which gives its central government extra powers to deal with suspected virus cases quickly and cut through Italian bureaucracy.
China made its first move to repatriate citizens abroad who wanted to return to the country. It arranged planes to bring home people from Hubei province, whose capital Wuhan is at the center of the outbreak. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman
Hua Chunying
said Friday that its efforts were prompted by Hubei natives facing “actual difficulties” overseas. She didn’t elaborate.
The impact of the new coronavirus virus has rippled across the globe. People wearing face masks in the U.K., where the first two cases were reported Friday.
Photo:
facundo arrizabalaga/Shutterstock
Xiamen Air, which is majority-owned by
China Southern Airlines Co.,
said it was flying one plane each on Friday to Bangkok and Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia—two popular tourist destinations—to take people to Wuhan. State broadcaster China Central Television reported that a flight operated by
Spring Airlines
was expected to bring 350 people from Tokyo back to Wuhan early Saturday.
Other governments, meantime, were scrambling to extricate their nationals from Wuhan, which has been on lockdown for more than a week as Chinese authorities try to contain the virus’s spread.
The French government has repatriated a few hundred of its citizens from Wuhan, authorities said. They arrived on Friday in the south of France, where they will stay for 14 days under medical supervision at a holiday center near Marseille. Six cases of the infection have been identified in the country.
A plane chartered by the U.K. with 110 Britons and citizens of other countries left Wuhan for Britain on Friday morning, the U.K. government said on its website. The flight was scheduled to go to Spain after stopping in the U.K.
The U.S. is planning to evacuate more Americans from Wuhan as early as Monday, after an initial flight primarily for staff of the U.S. consulate there departed on Wednesday. That flight carried 210 Americans, stopping in Anchorage before landing at a military base in Southern California.
As part of China’s efforts to contain the coronavirus from spreading, China’s national railway operator said ticket buyers would need to provide mobile phone numbers for every passenger, starting Saturday—a move that would allow authorities to contact anyone who had been on a train with a potential patient.
In Hong Kong, which has a handful of confirmed cases of the virus, school closures were extended until early March, city Chief Executive
Carrie Lam
said Friday.
On Thursday, the U.S. State Department raised its alert to the highest level, advising Americans in China to consider leaving the country and requesting all nonessential U.S. government personnel postpone travel there. The State Department applies the same “Do Not Travel” advice to Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela.
Before widening it Thursday, the State Department had applied the “Do Not Travel” advice only to Hubei province, while urging Americans to reconsider travel to China more generally.
The State Department advice came hours after the WHO designated the Wuhan coronavirus a global public-health emergency, indicating that public-health authorities now consider the respiratory virus a significant threat beyond China.
—Wenxin Fan, Xiao Xiao, Jason Douglas, Waqar Gillani, Ann Simmons, Marcus Walker, Noemie Bisserbe and Feliz Solomon contributed to this article.
