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Air France flight to US diverted to Montreal due to Ebola travel restrictions

TORONTO (AP) — An Air France flight bound for Detroit was diverted to Montreal after a passenger from the Congo boarded a flight in Paris “in error” amid flight restrictions tied to the Ebola outbreak, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Thursday.

A spokesperson for the agency says the passenger “should not have boarded” the plane Wednesday due to U.S. entry restrictions put in place to reduce the risk of Ebola spreading.

The spokesman said in an email officials “took decisive action and prohibited the flight carrying that traveler from landing at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, and instead, diverted to Montreal, Canada.”

Air France said the Congolese passenger was denied entry into the U.S. due to new regulations that travelers from certain countries, including the Congo, can enter only through Washington.

The Department of Homeland Security also said that as of Thursday all U.S.-bound American citizens and permanent residents who have been in Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the previous 21 days must only enter through Washington Dulles International Airport for enhanced screening.

Craig Currie, spokesman for the Public Health Agency of Canada, said U.S. officials informed Canadian authorities that the plane was refused entry due to their temporary travel restrictions for anyone who traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan within the previous 21 days.

Currie said a public health official in Montreal assessed the traveler as asymptomatic. He said the traveler has flown back to Paris.

“Air France flight AFR378, along with all other passengers, continued to its original destination of Detroit,” Currie said in an email.

The World Health Organization on Sunday declared the Ebola outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. The outbreak is linked to the Bundibugyo virus, which is rarer than others and there is no available vaccine or medicine for it.

Iran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait following US strikes, threatens to end talks to end the war

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to U.S. airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” could come to negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks. Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas, without Iran's direct oversight sparked the crossfire now gripping the region. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman in the Strait of Hormuz to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic — setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran. Iran insists it alone must govern the strait after the war, upending decades of the world considering that the strait was international waters free for all, despite its sitting in Iran and Oman's territorial waters. Tehran has twice attacked vessels going through the Oman route, backed by a United Nations agency, in recent days. Early Sunday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship at sea early Saturday morning. That ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key negotiator between Iran and the United States.
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