¤ A Chinese woman infected with bird flu has died, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said yesterday, and Indonesia treated a chicken seller suspected of contracting the virus. The victim, a 29-year-old woman surnamed Cao, was the seventh person to die from bird flu in China since November. The WHO said the woman died on Monday after falling ill with a fever on January 12. It said she worked in a shop selling dry goods and added it had no evidence of exposure to diseased birds, but was investigating.

¤ Iran yesterday accused the British military of cooperating with bombers who killed eight people in southwest Iran, a claim Britain described as "ludicrous". A little-known group campaigning for independence for Iran's Arab minority claimed responsibility in a web statement for Tuesday's attacks on a bank and government building in the oil city of Ahvaz.

¤ About 60 people suffered burns and other injuries in Niger yesterday when smuggled gasoline being stored in a house caught fire and exploded, local officials said. Many of the victims had rushed to help rescue residents from a house fire in Maradi, near the border with oil-producing Nigeria, but were caught in an explosion when the fire reached barrels of smuggled fuel stored in the house.

¤ One person was missing after a UN helicopter carrying 13 people crashed yesterday while evacuating aid workers in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, the UN said. A UN statement said none of the other passengers were seriously injured.

¤ Sri Lanka's government and Tamil Tiger rebels said yesterday they would hold talks in Switzerland on implementing a strained 2002 truce, easing war fears - or at least postponing a return to conflict. A string of suspected rebel attacks on troops in the Tamil dominated north and east over the past two months, killed more than 200 and pushed the country to the brink of war, with the two parties unable to find a location for crisis talks until now.

¤ The eldest daughter of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was being questioned at Washington's Dulles International Airport yesterday, a US Customs and Border Protection spokesman said. Chilean government officials have said Lucia Pinochet Hiriart flew to Washington from Argentina and was considered a fugitive from justice. She has been charged with tax fraud related to some $1 million in undeclared taxes and falsification of documents.

¤ Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's doctors consulted yesterday with specialists from a long-term care facility that claims a high success rate for awakening comatose patients. A spokesman for Jerusalem's Hadassah hospital, where Mr Sharon has been in a coma since a massive stroke on January 4, said the 77-year-old leader remained in critical but stable condition.

¤ Poland's minority Cabinet won a Parliament vote on its 2006 budget yesterday, but the ruling conservatives ruled out a coalition with the fringe parties that backed them, signalling they were heading for a snap election. The ruling Law and Justice managed to gather a parliamentary majority for the bulk of its budget plans, but quickly made clear it would not rule with the anti-reform, anti-EU fringe parties that helped it pass the plan.

¤ Armed pirates have renewed attacks on merchant ships off Somalia, hijacking one and holding 20 of its crew hostage, an ocean crime watchdog said yesterday.

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