Foreign Diplomats in South Korea Evacuated to Russia
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. We appreciate it. I'm Natalie Allen.</s>MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Michael Holmes. Headlines for you this hour. The novel coronaviruses has affected more than 108,000 people worldwide and killed at least 3,800. Nearly a quarter of all cases are now at outside mainline China. South Korea and Iran still struggling with major outbreaks.</s>ALLEN: Italy also has more than 7,000 cases. It is putting nearly 16 million people on lockdown as it struggles to contain the outbreak. That's roughly a quarter of the population. All of Lombardi and 14 provinces in the north are affected. The Grand Princess cruise ship will dock briefly in Oakland, California, on Monday. There are at least 21 people with coronavirus on board. Passengers needing medical care will be taken off first. The remaining U.S.-based passengers will be sent to quarantine stations for 14 days. And foreign diplomats who were quarantined inside North Korea have been evacuated to Russia. They had been kept in isolation since early February over fears of a coronavirus outbreak in the country. Let's go now to Will Ripley, standing by in Tokyo for that side to this story. Tell us. This was going to happen a while ago. It got delayed. Why are they doing it and why know?</s>WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This, Michael, I think is the first flight that has actually left North Korea since the country suspended flights and sealed its borders pretty much within days of the onset of this coronavirus outbreak. They had been keeping those foreign diplomats in total isolation since early February. The conditions described by a source of mine inside the country as very difficult, dull. They couldn't leave their compounds. They basically had nothing to do. And at the same time, their cash and supplies have been running out, because remember, North Korea isn't a country with a banking system where you can wire money. You have to basically hand carry in everything, including the money that you use to pay for things, like electricity, and fuel, and food, and water, and that sort of thing. So it's been a pretty difficult situation for the diplomatic staffers, around 300 or so, who are believed to be inside North Korea. I am told by a source who was on that evacuation flight early this morning -- and we have some photos of the convoy leaving Pyongyang, the diplomatic convoy, provided to us by the U.K. ambassador to North Korea. Basically, there were 103 people who were on that flight. The reason why they didn't go to Beijing, and they went to Vladivostok instead is because there are so many travel restrictions in place for Beijing. So they had to choose the other city that North Korea's airline, Air Koryo, you know, normally flies to on a regular basis, which is Vladivostok, Russia. So the flight landed with those diplomats on board. Now the German, Swiss, and French missions are completely shut down. And a number of other countries, including Russia, Pakistan, Egypt, Nigeria, Cambodia, they have all scaled back their operations. So basically, if you have 100 or so people on the flight, 300 diplomats inside North Korea, the number of foreign diplomats inside that country is now cut by a third. And for those who remain, it's not clear how they're going to get those supplies, the cash, and the other things they need to continue their operations. But certainly, you know, from you know, a diplomatic perspective, any time you have such a large percentage of the diplomatic corps leave a country, that only serves to further isolate North Korea at a time that they might need the help of the international community, given the unknown status of the coronavirus situation inside that country. North Korea has yet to confirm a single case of the virus, but a lot of outside observers are fearful that, in fact, there may be people in the country who are sick and unable to get medical treatment because, A, the country isn't testing; and B, they just don't have the made the medical capabilities to handle a coronavirus outbreak.</s>HOLMES: Yes and if it became very serious, God knows what would happen in a country like North Korea without the infrastructure to treat it. Will, good to see you. Thank you. Will Ripley in Tokyo.</s>ALLEN: Well, countries in the Middle East are taking measures to contain the spread of the virus. Qatar and Saudi Arabia temporarily banning travelers from several countries.</s>HOLMES: Meanwhile, Egypt reporting its first fatality. A 60-year-old tourist from Germany. Plus, a quarantined cruise ship in Luxor has dozens of confirmed cases, we're told, of the coronavirus. CNN's Sam Kiley with the details.</s>SAM KILEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Egyptian authorities have confirmed that 45 people on a Nile Cruise ship have been affected by the coronavirus. Eleven of them have not yet tested positive, but 34 have tested positive. They've all been flown to a remote desert hospital in the west of Egypt to join others who've been quarantined. Among them was Matt Swider, a tech journalist from New York, who tweeted pictures of his journey there in the military aircraft that took the patients to the hospital, and of his arrival in the western desert. On top of that, there have been substantial crowds gathering outside Ministry of Health offices in Cairo, seeking tests for the coronavirus ahead of traveling to employment or the hopes of employment elsewhere in the region. Both countries have said that people need to be tested before they can travel, particularly to the United Arab Emirates. In Bahrain, the Formula One race there is going to go ahead, but they will be no crowd watching it. There will be people able to watch it, obviously, on television, but no crowds will be in attendance there. And Saudi Arabia has locked down an entire province, the province of Qatif, a population of about half a million people, where laborers are being told not to report for work as this virus continues to spread across the Middle East. Sam Kiley, CNN, in Abu Dhabi.</s>HOLMES: Well, it was a massive turnout in Santiago, Chile, for an International Women's Day march.</s>ALLEN: However, police say there were acts of violence in the crowd. We'll show you how they responded when we come back.