welcome to newsday on the bbc. i'm mariko oi in singapore. the headlines... with over 100 deaths recorded so far — the highest outside china — italy closes schools and universities as it struggles to contain the coronavirus. britain's biggest regional airline, flybe, is on the verge of collapse, putting 2,000 jobs at risk. i'm kasia madera in london. also in the programme... the billionaire michael bloomberg drops out of the race for the white house and backs joe biden. and why enjoying content by using online streaming services could be harming

the environment. live from our studios in singapore... ..and london. this is bbc world news. it's newsday. good morning. it's 9am in singapore, 1am in london, and 2am in rome — where the italian authorities have announced the highest death toll from the coronavirus anywhere in the world after china. and elsewhere, the figures are creeping up and up. in the united states, 148 people have tested positive for the virus — and there's been a first fatality in california — where, in the past hour, the govenor has declared a state of emergency. in the uk, 36 new cases have been reported — that's the biggest dailyjump so far — and takes

the total to 87. and in italy, 107 have died, and over 3,000 people have been diagnosed. the government have decided to take more drastic measures to try to control the outbreak. 0ur rome correspondent mark lowen has more. an early easter break for pupils across italy. every school and university will now close from tonight in a bid to halt the virus. europe's worst—hit country stepping up its response. it's a problem because we have to stop the exams, we have to stop almost all the activities in the classroom. maybe we can do something from home. but it's not the same, of course. parents and children are taking in the news. for some, the disruption is a price worth paying. it's not a question of panicking, but taking necessary measures to avoid

the virus spreading out. her nine—year—old, ernesto, says he's happy because it means no studying and no homework. italy was the first in europe to ban all flights to china, the first to cordon off whole towns, now the first to close all schools. a dramatic response to a deepening crisis. and perhaps an example of how other countries too may respond if their outbreaks continue to worsen. as cases and deaths rise, more towns in the north may be quarantined. cinemas and theatres could close. and the government is even set to advise tactile italians not to greet by kissing. so how many rooms here are occupied? no one. none of them? empty. coronavirus fear is battering italy's economy, with hotels empty. 0wner giuseppe roscioli says he's had 90% cancellations and it's the biggest crisis

in his 35 years. and if this situation gets worse, what will happen? we have the key, we can close the door. italy is now facing an unprecedented challenge and a desperate search for a remedy for the virus and for this country's suffering. mark lowen, bbc news, rome. let's take a look at some of the day's other news. the taliban and the us both claim they‘ re committed to peace, in spite of attacks by both sides in afghanistan since the two sides signed a deal to end violence on saturday. on wednesday, the us carried out an airstrike against taliban fighters they say were attacking a checkpoint. taliban militants have killed at least 20 afghan soldiers and policemen since tuesday. secunder kermani reports from kabul. over the past few days, levels of violence in afghanistan have been increasing with a number of attacks by the taliban

on afghan government forces. today, in response to one of those attacks in the southern province of helmut, the us today say they launched their first air strike against taliban fighters in 11 days, targeting them as they were attacking a checkpoint. this is all in contrast to the events last week when a seven—day long partial ceasefire saw a reduction in violence in place, leading up to a signing of the us—taliban agreement on saturday. us and afghan officials say they expected that partial truce to be continued after the signing agreement, but crucially there was no specific mention of that in the text that was signed. earlier this week, the taliban said they would resume attacks against the afghan government, though not against international forces. it was only last night that donald trump called one of the deputy leaders of the taliban on the phone and had what he said was "a good conversation" with him about the issue of violence. all this comes against

the backdrop of another stumbling block in the peace process, about the fate of up to 5,000 taliban prisoners. the insurgents want them to be freed from afghan jails before they begin intra—afg hanistan talks between the taliban and other afghan political leaders, including those from the government. the government does not want to let them go, or at least not without getting some kind of concessions in return. also making news today... swedish climate activist greta thunberg has told the european parliament its planned climate law amounts to surrender. the european commission wants to make the eu carbon—free by 2050. thunberg was invited to attend the commission's climate meeting. she said its plans are too little too late. satellite images of syria show how parts of idlib have become uninhabitable. this is the original image of a residential area. less than a year later, the homes are reduced to

rubble, while the surrounding fields have been turned into scorched earth. and this image taken in 2017 shows a field being used to grow crops. by the end of 2019, the lands been transformed into a makeshift refugee camp. almost a million civilians have been displaced there in the last four months. we've been hearing about schools about to be shut in italy, but they've also been closed in many countries across asia in an attempt to contain the spread of coronavirus. but it's no holiday — despite the shutdown, the learning continues with lessons held online. logging on at home is not new for students in hong kong. but this time, schools have been closed for over a month and won't re—open for another month. so how are students, parents and teachers coping

with this new way of learning? earlier i spoke to dr harry brown, principal of esf renaissance college. they're doing a marvellous job. we left on 23 january for chinese new year, and we've not been back since. we have 2,100 students in primary and secondary, all of them having participated in our online learning platforms, directly engaging with teachers place to make a face—to—face all between year 1—13. but all the students will face exams, how is this affecting the quality of education? fortunately our exams are in may, so a good portion of the content had already been covered or is close to revision time. but our students are very adept at managing an online environment, and we are doing lessons in our diploma classes, those students in the last two years of school,

but those getting ready for examination were following a timetable where the students are online with their classes. so in some ways, it teaches them a laser—like focus of what they must accomplish between now and exam time at the end of april, beginning of may. how about younger children, aged 4—5? they can't possibly comprehend the idea of logging online and learning, and some parents are having some issues with childcare. this is the first week actually since the school closure where parents have been back at work. the government instituted a work from home protocol the first month, so student teachers, parents were at home with the children helping them. as a matter of fact, this last month students have been more involved with their teachers and parents with the learning more than ever. now the parents are back, it will be more difficult. again, it's additional help at home, trying to schedule time for students, we have pe classes being filmed online

and sent back to teachers, which have been graded. the only concern we have are with some of the younger students who have not been outdoors. families are keeping their children inside for their perceived safety, so some kids haven't been outdoors for six weeks. that's a bit of a concern on the well—being side. some of the impact there of the coronavirus. flybe, britain's biggest regional airline, is on the verge of collapse after going into administration, putting thousands ofjobs at risk. the company had asked the government for a loan of £100 million — that's almost $130 million us dollars — to stay in business. but concerns over coronavirus have also affected bookings in recent weeks. flybe is a leading carrier at airports including belfast, glasgow, southampton, manchester, and birmingham. the loss of flybe for the uk region's airports is disastrous. it's small in the scale of the uk market as a whole, but if you're flying out of exeter, newquay, or specifically southampton, it really is one of the only

choices. indeed, in southampton, it accounts of about 95% of the activity of our airports. a number of regional routes will risk being served. now to us politics. the billionaire us businessman, michael bloomberg, has abandoned his bid for the white house and thrown his weight behind the former vice president, joe biden. he failed to win much more than 15% of the vote in any state in the democrat primaries known as super tuesday. if you remember, i entered the race for president to defeat donald trump. and today, i am leaving the race for the same reason — to defeat donald trump, because staying in would make it more difficult to achieve that goal. you're watching newsday on the bbc. still to come on the programme... there are more clashes on the greek—turkish border, as migrants try to reach europe. also on the programme: why

experts believe climate change had a mjor bearing on the scale of australia's bush fires this year. first, the plate slid gently off of the restaurant table. then suddenly, the tables, the chairs and people crashed sideways and downward. it was just a matter of seconds as the ferry lurched onto her side. the hydrogen bomb, on a remote pacific atoll, the americans had successfully tested a weapon whose explosive force dwarfed that of the bomb dropped on hiroshima. i heard the news earlier. and so, my head went back and back. the constitutional rights of these marchers, are their rights of citizens of the united states, and they should be protected even in the right to test them out, so they don't get their heads broken

and are sent to hospital. this religious controversy, i know you don't want to say too much about it, but do you worry about it that it will boil over in the states? it worries me, yeah. but i hope everything will be all right in the end of the day. this is newsday on the bbc. i'm mariko 0i in singapore. i'm kasia madera in london. our top stories... 107 people have now been killed by the coronavirus in italy. the government there is closing all schools and universities for ten days. britain's biggest regional airline, flybe, is on the verge of collapse, putting 2,000 jobs at risk. let's take a look at some front pages from around the world. the japan times reports that the international olympic

committee remains confident that the games in tokyo will go ahead. the newspaper says that 0lympic chiefs are not focusing on moving the location or date of the games — that's contrary to reports yesterday, which said that the olympics could be moved to a later date in the year. the south china morning post says that a pet dog belonging to a coronavirus patient has contracted the disease. it's believed to be the first case of human to animal transmission, but experts stress there is no evidence pets can be a source of infection or that they can fall sick. and finally, the international edition of the new york times has this striking image of inmates at a women's prison in afghanistan, as they break their fast together during the islamic holy month of ramadan.

let's bring you an update on the coronavirus in the united states. as we reported earlier in the past hour the governer of california, gavin newsom, has declared a state of emergency over the coronavirus after confirming 53 cases. earlier, officials announced the first death of the virus in the state. we've had a number of incidences throughout the state of california. no longer north, 110w of california. no longer north, now in southern california. we have accordingly, with this new i see you patient that passed away, entered into this next phase that has required me under the circumstances to advance a proclamation of a state of emergency in the state of california —— i see you. the president of the european council has met turkish president erdogan to discuss the increasing tensions on the border between turkey and greece. the greek government has denied reports that its soldiers shot

dead a migrant who was trying to cross from turkey. thousands of people have been gathering at the border, after turkey lifted restrictions on migrants trying to reach the european union last week. jonah fisher reports from the border. so this river is the border between greece and turkey — turkey on this side, the european union just over there. and we've been speaking this morning to migrants who have tried to make that crossing by boat overnight. and though it doesn't look particularly fortified at the moment, we are told that when the migrants reach greece, they're being very quickly confronted by the greek authorities and sent back. men like mustafa from senegal. we came across him walking with two afghans. they are unlikely allies with no common language, but a common goal — europe.

mustafa tells us they were part of a group who landed in greece last night, and were violently returned. "i was injured, but i saw two people shot in front of me. two syrians." "are you sure they were dead," i say? "they are dead, it was in front of me." and he shows me where they were hit. further north, there were more chaotic scenes at a border crossing. the turkish authorities released this footage and say a migrant was killed by the greek security forces. greece has denied killing anyone and says it is all turkish propaganda. but there is no doubt that the turkish authorities are cynically bringing desperate people up to the border to ramp up the pressure on europe. we chanced upon this

bus full of migrants. where are you guys from? you're from afghanistan? from syria? and you just brought these people up from istanbul to go to the border? this clearly has official approval, and the police were not too keen for it to be filmed. and so, the migrants keep coming. some of them, like these pakistanis, already tooled up for the river crossing. there is nothing spontaneous about this — it's being very deliberately orchestrated by turkey. but greece's response is showing little compassion. jonah fisher, bbc news, on the turkish border with greece. climate change caused by humans contributed to the weather conditions behind the recent bushfires in southeastern australia, according to a team of leading climate scientists at the world weather attribution group. researchers from australian, european and american

universities and research institutes worked together on the study. david bowman is a professor of fire sciences at the university of tasmania joins me now from hobart. in your opinion, the headline message from this study, what do we need to focus on here? what i think we need to focus on is not normalising the fire event we've experienced here in australia. whilst the event was occurring, there was incredible focus on it. and now that we are intoa focus on it. and now that we are into a recovery phase, we need to be very careful that we decide this is not the new normal. because if you are a tribute and climate change to this event, this is the beginning of the process, not just a step change. this is where we are powering down a

very dangerous, steep hill into uncharted territory. the study has found that climate change caused by human increased the changes of these extreme weather conditions, these fire conditions by 30%. so does that mean it wouldn't have been as bad if humans weren't creating this claimant change? that's absolute right, and i think an important point about the study is that it is actually quite conservative. the tools and the models that are available are able to reliably — the attributions that there certain of. but there's many open questions about the nature of this event that couldn't be nailed down. 0ne this event that couldn't be nailed down. one of them is the most peculiar conjunction of some claimant modes that we possibly have never experienced before where we have incredible

dryness associated with this relentless wind, these windstorms that were also driving these extreme fires burning, such as areas in eastern australia. briefly if you would, there is a warning about global temperatures. what happens if they rise by 2%? -- two centigrade? the warning is very start, and i think we need to really understand — i don't like the phrase new normal. what we're is entering into a rapid transition associated with rapid warming, and we will start seeing the earth system respond to with catastrophic responses like these bushfires, which unfortunately go on to drive the process to become even more out of control

because of, in this case, the greenhouse gas emissions from the fire on the atmosphere. so this is a very serious situation we are in, and that study is really — it is fantastic it is being done, because it nails down the attributions step. but i must reiterate it is actually quite a conservative estimate. professor, we have to leave it there, thank you so much. thank you. listening to music and watching films and television programmes by using streaming services is hugely popular but there are warnings that this way of enjoying content is harming environment. to store all the data there are hundreds of thousands of data centres around the world, many of them using electricity generated by burning fossilfuels. figures suggest that the needs of it now create the same volume of carbon emissions as flying. 0ur environment correspondent claire marshall has the story.

when we post a video or a photo or save something to the cloud, it leaves our device and travels through different networks. maybe through cables under the ocean to a building called a data centre, where it's stored. when we want to see it, this data is exploded into thousands of pieces, each one travelling a different route. when they get to a device, they put themselves back in the right order. so the internet, or the cloud, isn'tjust in the air. it exists in buildings like this one. i'm in london's docklands, where fruit and veg used to be traded on these streets. now its data — huge amounts of it. in this building are thousands of servers, and they're capturing and storing, and sending all our data. there are now hundreds of thousands of these energy—hungry data centres. the problem is that many are powered by fossilfuels. this is the us state of northern virginia, known as the internet capital of the world. this is one of the coal—fired power stations supplying

it with electricity — belching carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas. it belongs to dominion energy, the largest provider, which generates much of its power by burning fossilfuels. microsoft and google are here. amazon has built 55 data centres. we think of amazon as a giant online supermarket, but actually the company makes far more money building and renting data centres. most of the residents are pretty clueless as to what is right here. alex rough is campaigning for the tech companies to use green energy. we are processing large amounts of data on a daily basis. these data centres are consuming large amounts of energy to process that data to stay operational in a 24—7 environment. dominion energy told us they were committed to net zero carbon and methane emissions by 2050. amazon said they were working towards 80% renewable energy by 2024, and 100% by 2030. technology is adapting quickly.

data centres are more efficient than ever but there is a whole new challenge — 5g. 5g will generate much more traffic and demand much more power, which is not good for climate change. we've all got to change. i think the internet‘s got the power to help us control and reduce climate change, but we need to change some of our more frivolous behaviour before we get there. streaming videos in standard definition rather than hd saves four times the emissions, and using wi—fi rather than s—iig uses a third of the energy. claire marshall, bbc news. and before we go, some bad news for bond fans. the release date for the newjames bond film, no time to die, has been pushed back to november.

producers say they acted after an "evaluation of the global marketplace." james bond fans willjust have to watch. —— wait. thanks for watching. hello. 0verall, thursday won't be too bad a day across the majority of the uk. there should be some decent sunshine, just a few showers here or there. quite a chilly start with some patchy frost and fog. the one major exception is the far south of the uk. an area of low pressure is ploughing into the continent, bringing very heavy rain into france, and that willjust glance southern counties of england through the first half of the day. so looking pretty wet as that low works its way to the south. certainly from the latter part into the lunchtime period across the southeastern quadrant of the uk, the rain could get as far north as essex. it should gradually clearer come the afternoon.

in contrast, look how quiet it is elsewhere. a chilly wind following behind that rainfall, showers pouring into east anglia, a few sharper ones for western scotland and northern ireland. temperatures, while still struggling a bit for many of us, highs of 7—8 celsius. come thursday evening, the low pulls away and we see a more organised band of showers coming in from the west. with light winds ahead of it, temperatures are likely to fall. a fairly extensive frost, and when we see showers, ice could be a significant risk across western britain first thing on friday. but this front is a kind of patchy affair, so the rain through friday daytime is more salary than solid and persistent. —— shower e. in some areas it may manifest as cloud is addressed in from the west. most likely see showers in scotland, western wales and the far south of england.

friday, should be a fair amount of sunshine around. here comes the weekend, another area of low pressure heading our way. should not be anywhere near as severe as the future we saw last weekend, and the worst of the rainfall should sweep through overnight saturday into sunday. —— feature. so for saturday, while yes a lot of cloud around, but actually a lot of dry weather. temperatures on saturday around average for the time of year. we are talking about 9—10 celsius. as a system rolls through overnight, some spots remain warm... but for sunday we are plunged into cooler conditions behind it. sharp showers, there will be sunny intervals at minus two celsius, a similar face for sunday but it will feel chillier when you're on wednesday picked up a northwesterly wind.

hello.

i'm kasia madera with bbc world news. our top story. the number of people killed from the coronavirus in italy has jumped to 100 and seven — the highest number of deaths outside of china, where the virus started. in response to the outbreak — the italian government plans to shut all its schools and universities for the next ten days. the italian prime minister says health services risk being overwhelmed. billionaire michael bloomberg has suspended his campaign to gain the democratic nomination for president — despite significantly outspending his rivals. mr bloomberg says he will now supportjoe biden. and this video is getting a lot of attention on our website — a brawl broke out in turkey's parliament during a speech by an oppositon lawmaker who accused the president of disrespecting soldiers who died in syria. the speaker of parliament later condemned the comments. that's all.

thanks for watching bbc world news.