this is bbc news. i'm lucy grey. our top stories: the first coronavirus death in europe. a chinese tourist in his 80s dies after being diagnosed in france. because the ukrainian airliner. or down over tehran in january. the popular british tv presenter caroline flack has been found dead at her london home. a family say she took her own life. troops are deployed in the north of england. is storm dennis hits the uk and northern europe.

hello, welcome to bbc news. health officials in china have reported the total number of deaths from the coronavirus epidemic has now passed 1600 with 139 new deaths and more than 1800 new cases confirmed in the last hour. in france, an eight—year—old chinese tourist has died from the virus after visiting the epicentre of the outbreak in hubei province. it comes as the head of the world health organisation has said that it's too early to know if the outbreak will become a global epidemic. nick bea ke reports from hong kong. china has declared war on an invisible killer — sending more doctors as well as soldiers into the worst—affected area. but now the new coronavirus has claimed its first victim outside asia — an elderly chinese man who had travelled to france.

translation: last night, i was informed of the death of an 80—year—old patient who had been hospitalised at the bichat hospital since the 25th of january and who was suffering from a coronavirus lung infection. back in china, all those returning to the capital beijing after what's been an extended holiday have been told they must quarantine themselves for two weeks. passengers of many nationalities are still stuck aboard the diamond princess off the coast of japan. 285 people have now tested positive for the virus on the ship and america says it will remove all of its citizens tomorrow and fly them home. there is no such escape from wuhan, the chinese city where the outbreak began. officials have reported more than 21100 new cases there and 139 new deaths. in the rest of the world we only have 505 cases and two deaths while in china we have more than 66,000 cases.

let me be clear. it is impossible to predict which direction this epidemic will take. beijing claims it's acted quickly and decisively to try to stop the spread, but few are willing to predict what the global impact of this crisis will be. nick beake, bbc news, hong kong. for more details on the outbreak you can go to our website, we can find information about the spread of the disease and in—depth articles like this one, about how effective it is to wear a face mask. canada hosted a meeting today at the munich security conference along with the four other countries, which lost citizens when iran's military shot down a ukrainian passenger plane five weeks ago, killing all 176 people on board. canada is pushing iran to release the black boxes from the crash so their data can be properly analysed by facilities in france. our chief international correspondent lyse doucet sat down with the canadian foreign minister after the meeting in munich and asked him whether any progess had been made.

after 30 days of trying, we have to come to the conclusion that you need to look at another alternative, and we know at that point that the french have offered that they have the latest technology, they have the expertise, to read the contents of the black box, to download the content, and to do that in a transparent fashion. would you consider iran's request from the foreign minister, saying, give us the technical support to examine the black boxes in iran. couldn't you do that? well, the experts have spoken. the experts have spoken. the experts have spoken. the experts have said it is not the type of equipment you can transport. it looks more like a lab. it is not like a piece of equipment you can put in your luggage. it is the software and the hardware you need to have to do that, especially when the black boxes have been damaged.

so what we are saying is that we requested that, the answer has come back to say that on the equipment side there is no way that we can do that in iran. so the only remaining alternative is to send it to a third country which would be in this case france, which has offered to assist, because i think france understands the international community has a lot of questions. i always say that the best antidote to conspiracy is transparency. have you made any other progress here on the other big issue, which is compensation? you say, many say, that 57 of the passengers out of 176 were canadian. iran says they were iranians. they of course had to passports. so the compensation you are asking for, to run says, they cannot accept. is this something where compromise can be found? are you finding it? well, what we have hopefully established by now is that the compensation to be paid to the heirs of the

victims will be the same to everyone. and we also said that this process of negotiation, on a global settlement, should start quickly. i remember meeting this young girl who lost both pa rents, meeting this young girl who lost both parents, i mean, this isa lost both parents, i mean, this is a tragedy. you know, let me bring it back to, for canada, this has been a national tragedy. families have lost their loved ones. i was there with prime minister trudeau, we went to meet families, grieving families, who said, stand up for us. stand up to the regime. make sure that they are accountable. we want closure, we wa nt accountable. we want closure, we want accountability, we want justice, we want transparency. that is what animates me every timei that is what animates me every time i meet them. and that is why prime minister trudeau said he went to attend the meeting you had with foreign minister —— the foreign minister of iran, some of the families are expressing concern about the look of that, the photos of a smiling encounter, holding hands, was that a mistake? the

prime minister came with one purpose. to make sure that the iranians counterpart understood how serious the issue was. not only for the grieving families in canada, not only for the government of canada, but i think for the world. i think having the prime minister come into the room and states that, it's just reinforced the message. our chief international correspondent lyse doucet talking to the canadian foreign minister francois—philippe champagne. also making headlines today at that security conference in munich was the us secretary of state mike pompeo. he came with a warning that other global powers should not necessarily be trusted — when they appear to be undermining the international community in their own interests. huawei and other chinese tech company ‘s are trojan horses for chinese intelligence. —— companies. russia's disinformation campaigns tried to turn our citizens against each other. iranian cyber attacks plague middle eastern

computer networks. so — leaving aside russia and iran — what are we to make of mr pompeo's comments on china? recent years have seen growing hostility between beijing and washington in areas such as cybersecurity, technology and trade. and china is also building huge infrastructure projects — including the belt and road initiative, and even offering to build the uk's second high speed rail line in just five years, and at a much lower cost than estimated by the british government. isabel hilton is an expert on china. i asked her what she makes of the security concerns over china and the warnings given by us diplomats. well, i think undermining nato, you might also ask president trump how committed he is to nato. one of the things that makes mike pompeo's case difficult is that if you are looking at what is attacking old alliances and global order, you know, the united states has not played a terribly constructive role under the trump administration. that's not to say that they are entirely wrong about china, because, you know, china is a

leninist state, it has a strategy, it had an industrial strategy, it had an industrial strategy at home which was to build national champions by excluding others from the market, and now it has an international strategy of undercutting the competition by subsidising its big companies at home and then looking partner countries into arrangements which can be leveraged for other things. so you take on a big commitment from a chinese company if the host country, which is to modify about all find that it is not to its advantage, or if it is going to cancel it, it will find the entire power of the chinese state turned on it. so these things become very ha rd to so these things become very hard to cancel. and if, like britain for example, and you are thinking of negotiating a trade agreement, you can bet your bottom dollar that any contract you have in existence with the chinese company will be leveraged for the trade agreement. we were talking

about hs2, the british government considering this offer to have it done much quicker and cheaper than other companies. well... that would infuriate the us, presumably? it would certainly annoy the us. but we are also talking about huawei. that is how we end up with huawei. in 2003, when the uk was upgrading its telecommunications, pilot came in with a very, very low price and huawei has been doing that consistently. —— huawei came in with a very, very low price. people cannot resist a bargain. and this is a government in a hurry which says it wants to do things quickly. the cost of hs2 is extraordinary, estimated to be more than 100 billion pounds. make sure, but that is more to this than price. china uses the attraction of price in order to create a dependency. you have to think about what the dependency implies for your future security, for your future security, for your future freedom of manoeuvre,

andindeed future freedom of manoeuvre, and indeed to your current alliances. and since the us and china are now in a declared strategic competition, and the eu is ina strategic competition, and the eu is in a strategic competition with china also everybody is having to work out what that means for specific partnerships. britain hasjust left a powerful trading block. britain is on its own, trying to negotiate trade deals with both the us and china. this is an extraordinary and difficult position, because each side will try to demand the absolute loyalty that they seek. and china would certainly use this. and this would be very bad relations with the united states. so that is the problem that britain has. there is more to think about here than just price. police in paris have arrested petr pavlensky, the russian performance artist who released a sex video of french politician benjamin griveaux, ending his election bid to become mayor of paris. prosecutors said mr pavlensky was being questioned about a separate incident, involving an alleged fight at an apartment in paris six weeks ago. mr pavlensky‘s attack on mr griveaux, an ally

of the french president, was widely condemned across the political spectrum in france. the television presenter, caroline flack, host of some of the uk's biggest reality tv shows has been found dead at her home in east london. her family says she took her own life. ms flack, who was 40, was on bail awaiting trial next month for assaulting her partner, an allegation she denied. here's our media correspondent, david sillito. it's the return of the flack! love island, x factor, i'm a celebrity, caroline flack was a presenter on some of the biggest programmes on british television. she was until a few weeks ago the face of love island — the glamorous, escapist fun. let's atlk love who is looking for the real thing? —— let's talk love! but everything unravelled after she was arrested and charged with the assault of her boyfriend. in court in december

it was clear that she was deeply distressed. today, she was found dead at her flat. her lawyer said she had ta ken her own life. friends and colleagues have spoken of their shock and heartbreak at the news. love island is a show that thrives on its impact on social media and tonight thousands were expressing their grief and sympathy. but a court appearance was proof enough that she was also facing intense scrutiny. both in the press and online. on its best days, social media is a very powerful tool for these presenters because they can effortlessly and immediately communicate with so many different fans and really bring their own personality to the fore. the problem is that on the bad days, that scrutiny under tension does not go away. it stays with them. the macdonut brothers! her tv career went back nearly 20 years. tmi on children's bbc and in 2014 she won strictly come dancing.

the night she won, elation. but she spoke afterwards of her struggles with depression and then came the assault charge. she was accused of hitting her boyfriend while she slept. he stood by her but they were not allowed to communicate before her forthcoming trial. she was also advised to stay off social media but she did post this on instagram. she thanked those who had been kind to her and added, "this kind of scrutiny and speculation is a lot to take for one person." another post read simply: "in a world where you can be anything, be kind." caroline flack — who has died at the age of a0. stay with us on bbc world news, still to come: the 3 day—long race across a frozen lake — we'll hear from participants in one of sport's more extreme events. china are nine years and 15,000 deaths after going into afghanistan, the last soviet troops were finally coming home. the withdrawal completed

in good order, but the army defeated in the task it had been sent to perform. malcolm has been murdered. that has a terrible effect on the morale of the people. i am terrified of the repercussions on the streets. one wonders who is next. as the airlift got under way, there was no let—up in the eruption itself. lava streams from an event low in the crater flow into the sea on the east of the island, away from the town for the time being, but could start flowing again at any time. the russians heralded a new—generation space station with a spectacular night launch. they called it mir, the russian for peace.

this is bbc news, the latest headlines: an 80 year old chinese man has become the first person to die in europe after contracting the new coronavirus, known as covid—19. he died in hospital in france. a second major storm in less than a week has hit britain and other parts of northern europe. helena wilkinson reports. amongst the first evidence of damage by storm dennis was here in south wales. this village is where people's homes are under serious threat. a similar picture tonight in harberton in devon. dozens of flood warnings are still in place across the country as the rain continues to fall. in ilkley and calderdale in west yorkshire — areas still recovering from last week's storm — the army has been called in to strengthen the flood defences. there are a number of places where the local resilience authorities thought they had a problem with the flood defences that are currently in place so we have been asked

to support them by putting some more makeshift flood defences in in both places. some of the worst affected parts could see up to 140 millimetres of rainfall and gusts of up to 80 miles an hour. certainly with the amount of rain that is forecast, 100mm or a month's worth of rainfall on top of what is incredibly saturated ground, we are worried about the risk and that's why we are warning people to take action and that's why we are doing the kind of things we're doing here. not far away, in hebden bridge, there's no respite from the persistent rain. the scottish environment protection agency has issued flood warnings and advice for residents here in dumfries and galloway plus elsewhere in the borders, south lanarkshire and south ayrshire. for many, the half term getaway has ended up with a lesson in travel disruption. easyjet have cancelled around 350 flights over the weekend. almost 100 from here at gatwick. at heathrow, 60 flights were grounded — most of them

british airways. and on the roads, driving conditions were tricky. tonight, there are amber warnings for rain for most of the country, meaning flooding could cause a danger to life. communities are waiting and hoping that their preparations will be enough to protect them. helena wilkinson, bbc news. scientists are ramping up their efforts in the search for signs of alien life. a us government—funded agency is embarking on a collaboration with seti — a private organisation dedicated to the search for extra terrestrial intelligence. they will do a big sweep of the skies using 28 observatory in new mexico. the director of the observatory tony beasley, says the project will piggyback on the work already being done by us scientists. so the radio telescopes that

the national science foundation operates here in the us are still continuing to do their normal radio astronomy research, looking at different parts of the sky but over the next few years what we will be doing is putting additional hardware on the back of the telescope to listen along and see if we can detect signatures, signals coming from other civilisations in the foreground or the background or associated with the objects we are routinely observing. so the life that you are looking for, it's not tiny little organisms. this is life that can use technology, sophisticated alien life? that's right. there are other efforts in the science community to try and detect the signatures, the bio signatures of simple life like bacteria and other organisms but specifically here, what we are doing is looking for radio signals, looking for evidence for complex technological advanced societies. white

macallan are you going to do this for, when will you give 7 this for, when will you give up? i think we're going to do this for the time being. this isa this for the time being. this is a relatively straightforward thing for us to do. it doesn't interfere with our normal astronomical observing and if you do analyses of how long it might take before you detect a signal, you can come to any a nswer signal, you can come to any answer you want. in the meantime, in doing this type of research, you also develop technologies and it's an interesting topic and a way of attracting people to science and thinking about larger problems so it's a good activity for us to do alongside our normal astronomical observing. and so most importantly then, what would you do if you did see a sign? well, there are protocols that have been agreed by the international astronomy community about ways of first verifying an international signal. that would be the first thing that people would try and

do and then there is discussion of protocols that might be used to announce the signal and to talk about what it implies. it's hard to actually save. i think the time a signal would be found, ten years, 100 years in the future, it would be a very remarkable result and how thatis very remarkable result and how that is represented in society is unclear. 0k, and what would you say? you must have talked about it, you're at a conference with all your astronomer friends. you conference with all your astronomerfriends. you must talk about it in the bar, what message would send out, you've the movies. i think there are two separate blooms there. one issueis two separate blooms there. one issue is detecting the signal. the issue about sending a signal in response is a very complex issue, it's a different topic in some ways. i think knowing there was complex life out there in space is a

fascinating topic but exactly what signal we would send back is unclear. of course simultaneously here, we are continuously sending out radio signals into the universe so it's quite possible someone is observing us right now. now to a race with a difference — the track is the surface of a frozen lake. it's the ice storm contest, held annually in the far east of russia, and it could just be the toughest race in the world. take a look at this.

transmack it's tra nsmack it's like transmack it's like meditation. at the start there are lots of people but after two minutes, you are alone. —— transmack. transmack anything can happen. we already stepped in a lot of cracks. the duchess of cambridge has been speaking about one of the

most personal moments of her life. appearing on the pop cast happy mum happy baby, she talks about her crippling morning sickness. the podcast was recorded during a visit to this south london nursery. improving the lives of families with young children is now the priority for the duchess of cambridge and dominates her royal work. with podcast host giovanna fletcher, the duchess spoke personally about everything from the value of her own stable upbringing to the guilt that can come with motherhood. here leaving hospital after being admitted with severe morning sickness while pregnant with prince george, she also described the terrible strain of the condition. lots of people have it far worse but it was definitely a challenge, notjust for me but also for your loved ones around you and william did not feel he could do much to help and it is hard for everyone to see suffering without actually being able to do anything about it. catherine revealed she used hypno—birthing —

a breathing and relaxation technique — when pregnant. and she was asked about that very public hospital departure. it was slightly terrifying, i'm not going to lie! and for us to be able to share that joy and appreciation with the public, ifelt, was really important. but equally, it was coupled with a newborn baby and sort of inexperienced parents and the uncertainty about what that held. these insights tie in with the duchess' campaign to get more help earlierfor vulnerable families. she said billions of pounds were spent fixing the problems in later life — a cost she described as crazy. daniela relph, bbc news. don't forget you can get in touch with me and some of my team on twitter — i'm @lucyegrey. and lots of explanations on the website about the coronavirus.

hello. storm dennis continues to battle of britain. looking back at saturday, it was windy everywhere, wasn't it, but the strongest gust of wind was in aberdaren, was in lots of wind gusts but the rain has been causing problems across parts of northern england, wales, the west midlands and south—west england. lots of blood warnings in force and the number of blood warnings continues to rise hour by hour. with more heavy rain and the forecast, thatis heavy rain and the forecast, that is clearly not a good wing. looking at the satellite picture, this is storm dennis. it's this trailing weather front stretching for of miles thatis front stretching for of miles that is causing problems. the

winds are blowing parallel and the front gets stuck and what that means is we've got a lot more heavy rain to come as we head into the first part of sunday. some of the heaviest balls of rain across wales, the west midlands and south—west england, if anything, the rain much heavier than we saw on saturday for example, heavy falls as well in northern england at times. given we have a number of flood warnings out in force, things could get nasty for a time as we head into the first part of sunday morning. call across the north—west with blustery showers. looking to the rest of sunday, the weather front tracks its way towards the south—east. there is a risk this front could be slower to clear southern and eastern areas of england. still quite a bit of rain lept over into the afternoon but it's going to be afternoon but it's going to be a windy day everywhere. gusts inland, 50, 60 miles an hour. those winds are strong enough to bring down a tree or two.

the risk of transport disruption. often those very powerful gusts of wind. showers continue to feed and across the north and western as we gone into sunday night. when will get strongerfor a time into sunday night. when will get stronger for a time as the centre of dennis passes close to the north of scotland. the winds could cause problems here. it's a day broadly speaking of sunny spells and showers. the winds will continue to make it feel quite city through the northern areas. beyond that, it stays u nsettled. areas. beyond that, it stays unsettled. rain or showers in the forecast for most days and it will stay quite windy but the most of us it will say on the mild side. temperatures up to 14 degrees. that's your weather.

this is bbc news. the headlines: france has confirmed that a chinese tourist, who was in his 80s, has died from the coronavirus, the first covid—19 death in europe. the death came as the head of the who told a security conference that it's still too early to say whether the coronavirus outbreak will become a global epidemic. canada a global epidemic. is leading a renewed call for iran canada is leading a renewed call for iran to hand over the black boxes from an airliner brought down over tehran in january. more than 176 people on board were killed. much of western europe is being battered by a storm front that's causing severe travel disruption. in britain, winds have been gusting at up to 120km/h. hundreds of flights have been cancelled and in the the north of england, troops have been deployed to assist with anti—flood measures.