A spokesman from Southern Airlines' Xinjiang branch said that there will be a weekly Wednesday flight to Moscow. Air travel to Moscow was suspended in late April due to the outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in China.

The spokesman said that flights between Urumqi and the Russian city of Novosibirsk had resumed on June 6, and added that the company's Xinjiang branch is working to reestablish international flights to Kazakhstan's Almaty and Kyrgyzstan's Bishkek.

All five international flights departing from Xinjiang, including those to Moscow, Islamabad, Novosibirsk, Almaty and Bishkek, and with the exception of the flight to Pakistan's Islamabad, were suspended in late April due to SARS.

The World Health Organization lifted its last travel advisory on the Chinese mainland Tuesday when it lifted the advisory on Beijing and removed the city from its list of SARS-affected areas.

(Xinhua News Agency June 25, 2003)