China yesterday reported its fourth human death from the H5N1 bird flu virus this month, this time in the far northwest region of Xinjiang.
The Chinese Health Ministry said on its website (www.moh.gov.cn) the latest victim was a 31-year-old woman surnamed Zhang who died in the early hours of Friday. Her death from the virus followed three others in recent weeks.
Experts have confirmed that the woman, a resident of the regional capital Urumqi, was infected with the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, the report said. She fell ill two weeks ago.
"She had been to a poultry market before she fell ill," the official Xinhua news agency reported, quoting Wang Xiaoyan, a regional health official. The report gave no details.
BBC blocks charity appeal
The British government yesterday urged the BBC to drop its refusal to broadcast a humanitarian appeal for victims of the war in Gaza.
The BBC said the appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), a coalition of 13 aid agencies, would compromise the impartiality of its coverage.
"The most important thing we can do for the people who are suffering is carrying on reporting it and we've done exemplary work in reporting the suffering of the people of Gaza," chief operating officer Caroline Thomson said.
Anarchists clash with Greek police
Anarchists threw fire bombs and clashed with Greek police in Athens yesterday during a march to parliament by more than 1,000 demonstrators protesting over the police killing of a teenager last month.
"About 150 anarchists who broke away from the rally threw rocks at the police who responded with teargas," said a police official, who declined to be named. "Later, they threw fire bombs at the offices of the defence minister."
Drug suspect dissolves 300 bodies
A Mexican drug suspect has confessed to dissolving the bodies of 300 rivals with corrosive chemicals near the US border, in a claim highlighting the brutality of Mexico's drug war.
Santiago Meza, known as 'The Stew Maker', told journalists he did away with bodies in industrial drums on the outskirts of the violent city of Tijuana.
The suspect, who was paraded before journalists by the army last Friday, said he was paid $600 a week by a breakaway faction of the Arellano Felix cartel to dispose of slain rivals with caustic soda, a highly corrosive substance.
"They brought me the bodies and I just got rid of them," Meza said at a construction site where he said he dissolved 300 corpses last year. "I didn't feel anything."
Travolta extortion allegation probed
Bahamas authorities are investigating a suspected extortion attempt against actor John Travolta, whose son died there this month, and a senator was under arrest, although no charges had been filed. Police would not elaborate on the nature of the allegation. Media reports said it was a threat to sell pictures of Jett Travolta's body if the actor refused to pay for them himself.
Jett Travolta, 16, died on January 2 of a seizure disorder after being found unconscious at his family's home in the Old Bahama Bay resort on Grand Bahama Island.
The boy's body was cremated in the Bahamas and his ashes were returned to Florida.
Korea's Kim wants denuclearisation
North Korea is committed to removing nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula and wants to co-exist peacefully, leader Kim Jong-il said last Friday in his first meeting with a foreign envoy since his suspected stroke in August.
China's state Xinhua news agency said Kim made the comments during a visit to Pyongyang by a senior Chinese official.
Analysts have said a meeting with a foreign visitor would offer evidence that Kim, who US and South Korean officials said fell seriously ill in August, was well enough to run Asia's only communist dynasty and make decisions about its nuclear programme.
Pope rehabilitates Holocaust denier
Pope Benedict yesterday rehabilitated a traditionalist bishop who denies the Holocaust, despite warnings from Jewish leaders that it would seriously harm Catholic-Jewish relations and foment anti-Semitism.
The Vatican said the pope issued a decree lifting the excommunication of four traditionalist bishops who were thrown out of the Roman Catholic Church in 1988 for being ordained without Vatican permission.