welcome to newsday on the bbc. i'm sharanjit leyl, in singapore. the headlines: the world health organisation declares a global health emergency as china's coronavirus spreads. at least 200 people have now died and there are cases in 18 other countries. the main reason for this declaration is not because of what is happening in china, but because of what is happening in other countries. the race is no on to develop a vaccine before the virus takes hold. we'll be at a laboratory in san diego, which is spearheading the research. i'm lewis vaughan jones, in london. also in the programme:

with less than 2a hours until brexit, we look at britain's chances of striking quick trade deals with the rest of the world, including china. and the high tech trainers said to feel like running on trampolines — are they giving professional athletes an unfair advantage? live from our studios in singapore and london, this is bbc world news — it's newsday. hello. it's 1am in london, 9am in the morning here, in singapore, and 2am in geneva, where the coronavirus has been declared a global public emergency by the world health organization. in the last hour, china's national health commission said the death toll from the outbreak in the country rose to 213, with almost 2,000 new cases confirmed. it takes the total number of confirmed cases

to almost 10,000. the who said the declaration sent an important signal to the international community. i am declaring a public health emergency of international concern, over the global outbreak of novel coronavirus. the main reason for this declaration is not because of what is happening in china, but because of what is happening in other countries. our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems and which are ill—prepared to deal with it. lets cross over to hong kong and speak with the bbc‘s mariko 0i. we are hearing that the virus

is spreading so rapidly now, nearly 10,000 people affected in china alone and cross—border travel between hong kong and china has been limited. is there a sense of growing panic? it is fairto there a sense of growing panic? it is fair to say that people are worried. as you mention, as of midnight yesterday, the number of flights have been halved, the number of buses have been reduced and ferries, which would be arriving behind me, all of them have been shut down as well as the high—speed train service for mainland china. memories of the sars outbreak 17 years ago are still fresh. nearly 300 people lost

and it affected the economy quite significantly as well and thatis quite significantly as well and that is why people have been demanding even more drastic measures. now that the who has declared a global emergency, could mean more countries could start to restrict travel as well as trade with china and thatis well as trade with china and that is a concern for beijing because it could affect the chinese economy even further. various economist warning the graph could dip by 1% or 2%. the who also praised china's effo rts the who also praised china's efforts in dealing with the virus. the fear is that the coronavirus could hit countries with weaker health systems. is there a sense that china is doing everything it can to prevent the spread of this virus? opinions are split. critics of the who said it

should have declared this as a global emergency much sooner. whether there was any pressure from beijing under the who not to do so because of concerns over the economy. but at the same time others would say the normal flu kills more same time others would say the normalflu kills more people and therefore this should not be causing panic across the world. but as you heard from the head of the who he said this declaration is not anything to do with how china has been handling it stop him praised china's response, calling it extraordinary response to this outbreak and emphasised the reason he's calling this a global emergency is because of its spread around the world. hong kong of course shares a border with china. a border now restricted. russia having shut its border with china as well. i sense that people are focused on this. our

local media saying? —— what are local media saying? —— what are local media saying? all the front pages are about this outbreak. the south china post, the headline saying, virus death toll climbs and the number has now risen even further and it is rising rather rapidly. but also, pictures of long queues outside stores, queueing up to buy facemasks. many people wearing them already. many stores are running out of them. reports of tensions between shoppers fighting over who gets to buy the last masks. the shortage of facemasks around the world. citizens causing chaos. a lot of concerns over this outbreak

in hong kong. also making news today: senators in the impeachment trial of president donald trump are set to vote on whether or not to call any witnesses on friday evening. at least four republicans would need to side with democrats to allow witnesses to be called, including former national security adviserjohn bolton, who democrats believe could directly link mr trump with the decision to freeze military aid to ukraine in return for political favour. the uk's press regulator has rejected a complaint by prince harry about a newspaper's use of photographs from his instagram account, of wild animals in africa. the duke of sussex accused the mail on sunday of misleading readers, by suggesting he'd deliberately failed to reveal that the animals had been tranquillized and tethered with rope. the press watchdog said the newspaper article wasn't significantly misleading. archaeologists in egypt

have displayed the contents of 16 ancient egyptian tombs, discovered at a site in the minya region, south of cairo. the tombs were the burial place of high priests and senior officials who lived around 3,000 years ago. twenty stone coffins were found, along with some 10,000 figurines, jars and jewelry. now, brave volunteers are needed to help this saltwater crocodile in indonesia. it managed to get a tyre stuck around its neck, which no—one can seem to budge. local authorities are now offering a cash reward for the brave person who can free it. conservation officials have stressed they're looking for people with a background in wildlife conservation to help. the palestinian prime mininster mohammad shtayyeh has warned israel that, if it annexes any occupied palestinian territory, all agreements between the two sides would be terminated,

including co—operation on security. under president trump's plan unveiled on tuesday, israel would be free to annex all of its settlements in the occupied west bank. speaking to our correspondent orla guerin in ramallah, the prime minister denied that the palestinians had, once again, missed an opportunity by rejecting the plan. if we accepted the deal we could have been good guys. simply because we stick to our national interests, we are not good guys any more. if that is the criteria for who is good and who is bad, we prefer to be very bad, sticking to aspirations of our people and our legitimate right, in an indefinite palestinian state with jerusalem as its capital, let them call us whatever they want. did you make a strategic mistake in boycotting the american administration since december, 2017? that basically meant you had no voice at the table, you are not part of the negotiations. it was not we who did

boycott the united states. the united states has taken every measure to really push us away from the negotiating table. it's now less that 2a hours to go until britain leaves the european union. one of the immediate changes will be in trade arrangements. the uk will be able to start talking to countries around the world about setting new rules for buying and selling goods and services. one of the obvious targets for a deal will be with the second biggest economy in the world — china. rana mitter is the director of the university of oxford china centre. i began by asking him what would a trade deal with china look like. i think it would look like something that has taken quite a while to negotiate. the fact is, at the moment, something like 3% of britain's trade takes place with china so it is a far smaller partner than the united states or the european union and that means that there will have to be a lot of attention paid

to working out precisely what it is that the uk wants to get from china and what china wants take from the uk. does the uk have anything particularly to offer? obviously china is a much bigger economy. what does the uk bring to the table here? it brings in some very high quality products. so, one physical good is pharmaceuticals. the chinese healthcare system is changing rapidly, china is becoming an older country. in ten years' time its population will start to drop and become older because of the effects of the famous one child policy, so lots of pharmaceutical products, medical technology, these are things that china will need and the uk has a lot of expertise in, but above all, its services. britain is an 80% service economy, and things that we often don't think of as services like higher education, universities, they are very interesting to the chinese. even now there are 100,000 or more chinese students actually studying in the uk so expanding the market for those sorts of services are really what the uk would like to bring and where there is interest in china.

okay, and would you envisage a huge comprehensive deal or a slightly smaller one? i think a more limited one. if you look at a country like switzerland, which is much smaller than the uk in terms of population but has a lot of specialist knowledge in areas like machine technology, the deal that has been done there is one where china gets very specific precision goods that they want, but a piece of warning on that, the swiss have had to sign a deal where they get much less access immediately to china's markets than china does to switzerland, so china is not afraid to use its very large, very powerful role as the second—biggest economy in the world to carve out a deal that suits beijing first and foremost, just as washington or brussels do as well. i see, that's interesting. and lastly, give us a timescale for all of this. how long do you think it will take? i think we are talking 5—7 years at a minimum in terms of that kind of deal, but there are other things that could be done in between that

don't involve a full deal. and there'll be special programme on bbc world news and the news channel. leaving the eu with katty kay and christian fraser in london and ros atkins in brussels, from 1900 gmt until 0030 on friday 31 january. you are watching newsday on the bbc. still to come on the programme: the race to develop a vaccine against the new coronavirus. we report from a laboratory in the us which is at the forefront of research. also on the programme: the science behind the speed. the controversial running shoes helping athletes go for gold. the shuttle challenger exploded soon after lift—off. there were seven astronauts on board, one of them a woman schoolteacher. 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 singled out buildings and brought them down in seconds. tonight, the search for any survivors has an increasing desperation about it as the hours passed. the new government is firmly in control of the entire republic of uganda. survivors of the auschwitz concentration camp have been commemorating the 40th anniversary of their liberation. they toured the huts, gas chambers and crematoria, and relived their horrifying experiences. this is newsday on the bbc. i'm sharanjit leyl in singapore. i'm lewis vaughan jones in london. our top stories:

the coronavirus outbreak which began in china has been declared a global health emergency. the number of those who have died has now risen to 213. with less than 2a hours until britain officially leaves the european union, pro—eu protestors have gathered outside the houses of parliament in london. it is expected there will be a pro—brexit rally on friday. let's take a look at some front pages from around the world. we start with the japan times, which leads with chinese tourists being shunned amid coronavirus fears. it reports that, along with flights from china being suspended, schools in europe have uninvited exchange students and restaurants in south korea have turned away chinese customers. the straits times reports that singaporean households will receive four free surgical masks to help contain the spread of the virus.

authorities are responding to a recent wave of panic buying. the paper quotes a minister saying you only need to wear a mask if you are unwell and need to see a doctor. and the philippine star reports on the first case of coronavirus in the country. the person infected is a 38—year—old female chinese tourist from wuhan city, the epicentre of the virus, and is now confined in a government hospital. let's get more on our top story. italy is the latest country to confirm it has diagnosed patients with the virus, bringing the total to almost 20 countries now effected by the coronavirus. let's take a look at what other countries are doing to combat this outbreak. in singapore, which has 13

confirmed cases, residents who have been to hubei province are legally obliged to go into quarantine, with severe penalties for those who don't comply, and it is barring entry altogether for new visitors who have been to hubei in the last two weeks. the australian government, which reports nine cases, is planning to evacuate hundreds of citizens from wuhan and then quarantine them on christmas island. that has been a contentious decision. the island is home to a controversial immigration detention centre. it has also quarantined china's national women's soccer team, which is in australia for an olympic qualifying tournament. with more cases detected around asia, many countries in the region are warning citizens to avoid travelling to china and screening travellers at airports and borders. so, with global cases rising, our global health correspondent tulip mazumdar is in san diego in the united states, and visited the labs of one pharmaceutical company which is working on

developing a vaccine. i'm at inovio's main labs, and actually, this is one of the labs which is working on developing a vaccine for this new coronavirus. the scientists you can see behind me, they've been working day and night since the outbreak began. and this is one of a number of international research facilities that are desperately racing to find a potential vaccine that could help people in this outbreak in china. well, joining me to tell me a bit more about this is drjacquie shea. she is chief operating officer at inovio. now, you managed to come up with a design, at least, for a vaccine very quickly, within a day or two of the outbreak being announced. how did you manage to do that? that's right, and that's really down to the really rapid response nature of our platform. so, first of all, it was incredibly helpful

that the chinese scientists put the sequence out online as quickly as they did. and then we were able to then take the sequence and put it through our algorithms on the computer, and design a new construct really within a matter of hours. the next day we had it being synthesised, being generated. and this is the genetic code the chinese government put up, and you're using what's called a dna platform to come up with this vaccine. you're planning to work with a chinese biotech company, i believe, to get this vaccine into human trials in the next few months, by the summer? that's right, so we're going to be working with professor bin wang of da nang university, and we want trials in the us and china by early summer. how concerned are you about what you've seen unfold in the last few weeks in china, and now in more than 15 countries around the world?

as a scientist, i'm very concerned, and i think the who decision today has also underlined the gravity of the situation, and the need for all of us to work extremely quickly. and the world health organization has declared an international public health emergency, and one of the things that the who said was there needed to be a priority on finding a vaccine, and also cures for this virus quickly. will that change what you're doing here? will you be able to do anything quicker? we're working as quickly as we can, and we'll continue to do that, but hopefully it will help smooth the path, and help co—ordination, and also it will help create more funding and resources available to fund the research. do you think you can get a vaccine out in time for this outbreak? well, we're very confident, based on the work we've been doing for a mers vaccine, which is a related coronavirus, that we can generate a vaccine rapidly that can hopefully be safe and efficacious. and it reallky depends

on what happens with this epidemic. it's still very rapidly evolving. drjacquie shea, thank you. the who did announce the public health emergency earlier today, mainly because they're worried about the international spread and what will happen if this virus gets into more developing countries with weaker health systems. the vaccine, of course, is extremely important. it is still very early days, both at this facility and at a number of other research facilities around the world, but the race is on to find a new vaccine, and the hope is that it can potentially get out during this outbreak. but, as we heard there, it depends on what's what happens over the next coming weeks and months, in china and beyond. for years, nike has branded its shoes as giving athletes that little something extra, whether it is driving to the hoop in basketball, returning a forehand in tennis,

or running that extra mile. but now, their technology is under scrutiny by the governing body of world athletics. there have been complaints that wearing nike's vaporfly range is equivalent to technological doping. new rules will be announced on friday. our sports editor dan roan has the story. commentator: this is history unfolding. a weekend that changed distance running forever, eliud kipchoge becoming the first athlete to complete a marathon in less than two hours last year. and then brigid kosgei also making history a day later. commentator: she's going to obliterate the world record. but how much were their feats down to the footwear? both kenyans wore modified versions of nike's controversial vaporfly. the sport's rules say shoes mustn't provide an unfair advantage. but have they been overtaken? some critics, like british olympian mara yamauchi, who was sponsored by a rival shoe firm, now want the governing body to step in and issue a ban. if they say, right, doping

is not allowed because it's performance—enhancing but we're ok with these shoes which are also performance enhancing, there's a bit of inconsistency there. what we're getting into now is not who's the best athlete. it's who has got the best shoes on. it's hard to see how anybody not wearing vaporflys in the tokyo olympics is going to win medals. remarkably, the five fastest marathons ever have all been achieved by runners wearing types of vaporfly in the last two years. so what is the secret? we asked experts at manchester metropolitan university to reveal the science hidden inside the shoe. what makes it special? so one of the key features of this shoe is the foam. so it's particularly light, and it's particularly thick, as you can see here. that thick foam can deform a lot, store lots of energy, and then return lots of energy as well. the other key feature is this full—length carbon plate, which you can see here. yes. that adds stiffness to the length of the shoe. it allows the athlete to have greater leverage and also stiffens the front of the shoe, allows them

to run more efficiently. the claim is that your running economy can increase by around 4%. these shoes are now a common sight at running clubs and in parks up and down the country, and these mass—produced ones will escape any kind of blanket ban. but modified versions may well struggle to meet new temporary restrictions that are set to be announced as world athletics tries to provide some clarity ahead of the tokyo olympics. nike says it respects the rules, and their shoes don't return more energy than the runner uses. their athletes embrace the advances. if we ban this and this, then actually, we will discourage innovation, we will discourage technology. evolution in sport is nothing new, but some fear running is being distorted, and in the pursuit of fairness, athletics rules must now catch up and fast. dan roan, bbc news. you have been watching newsday. i'm lewis vaughan jones in london. and i'm sharanjit leyl in singapore.

stay with us. coming up: the final countdown. as we have been hearing, brexit is finally happening. we will be taking a more in—depth look at what will change after 31 january, and what it means for asia. and, before we go, we would like to leave you with these pictures. now, you may remember president trump promising what he described as an big, impenetrable, beautiful wall on america's southern border. well, high winds have blown over this section near the californian town of calexico. a border patrol agent is quoted as saying the concrete fixing for the newly installed steel panels hadn't had time to set. that's all for now. stay with bbc world news.

hello there. thursday was a very windy day across the north of the uk, into parts of scotland. it stays breezy through the course of today as well, even windy in some areas, but what you will notice — it's going to feel very mild. and the reason for it, low pressure, always nearby. this front will bring spells of rain which will spread south—east across the country. quite a few isobars on the chart, and we're drawing ourair in from the south—west. this air source from the azores, as you can see, the oranges and the yellows indicates that it's going to feel mild, very mild in fact, for the time of year. but there will be quite a bit of around through the morning. that weather front i showed you, a band of rain spreading southwards and eastwards across england and wales

through the day. behind it, skies will tend to brighten up, so there'll be some glimmers of sunshine and plenty of blustery showers across the north and west of scotland, heavy with spells of rain. it will be a blustery day wherever you are, these are average wind speeds, could gust to 40mph or maybe 50mph in some of the windiest spots. look at the temperatures, for the time of year, extremely mild. the mid—teens celsius, we could be looking at 15 degrees in one or two spots across eastern england. it stays breezy, as well, rather cloudy as we head through friday night. further outbreaks of rain or longer spells of rain across the north—west corner of the country. further south, a few drier interludes, one or two showers around, and again, it should be a frost—free one. those temperatures remaining in double figures across the south to start the weekend. low pressure again nearby on saturday. we'll have this weather front bringing rain to the north and this front bringing some rain to the south. in between, a mixture of cloud, one or two showers, but also a little bit of brightness.

so one front across the south will allow outbreaks of showery rain to move across southern britain, tending to clear away from the south—east. further north, outbreaks of rain here, northern ireland, scotland, northern england, with some colder air beginning to push into the north of the country. so single figures here, but further south, a cooler day, but still mild for the time of year —10—13 degrees. on sunday we will see another blustery day, especially in the south, a weather front working its way northwards, taking its rain with it, tending to turn to snow over high ground in the north as it encounters colder air. but further south, another bright day, with a few showers, and once again those temperatures in double figures. as we head on into next week, looks like it turns colder. a cold snap for a while before it starts turn milder again towards the end of the week, with a return to stronger winds and outbreaks of rain.

i'm lewis vaughan jones with bbc world news. our top story: the outbreak of coronavirus which began in china has been officially declared a global health emergency. latest figures released within the last few minutes suggest a big jump in the number of confirmed cases, to more than 9,000. the death toll is 213. with less than 2a hours until britain officially leaves the european union, pro—eu protestors have gathered outside the houses of parliament in london. it's expected there'll be a pro—brexit rally in london on friday. and this video is trending on bbc.com... remember president trump promising what he described as an "big, impenetrable, beautiful" wall on america's southern border? well high winds have blown over this section near the californian town of calexico. it's thought the concrete hadn't had time to set. that's all. stay with bbc world news. more on our web site bbc.co.uk/news and the news app.