UN : Chance of bird flu resurgence

The United Nations has warned of a possible resurgence of the deadly bird flu virus, saying wild bird migrations had brought it back to previously virus-free countries and that a mutant strain was spreading in Asia.

A strain of H5N1 which can apparently sidestep defences of existing vaccines, is spreading in China and Vietnam, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said in a statement. It urged greater surveillance to ensure any outbreaks are contained.

Last week, the World Health Organisation reported that a six-year-old Cambodian girl had died on August 14 from bird flu, the eighth person to die from H5N1 avian influenza this year in Cambodia.

Vietnam suspended its spring-time poultry vaccination this year, the FAO said. Most of the northern and central parts of the country where the virus is endemic have been invaded by the new strain.

Elsewhere, the FAO says bird migrations over the past two years have brought H5N1 to countries that had been virus-free for several years, including Israel, the Palestinian territories, Bulgaria, Romania, Nepal and Mongolia.

"Wild birds may introduce the virus, but people's actions in poultry production and marketing spread it," said the FAO's chief veterinary officer Juan Lubroth.

WHO says globally there have been 331 human deaths from 565 confirmed bird flu cases since 2003 when it was first detected.

The virus was eliminated from most of the 63 countries infected at its peak in 2006, but it remained endemic in six countries: Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia and Vietnam.

The number of outbreaks in poultry and wild bird populations shrank from a high of 4,000 to 302 in mid-2008, but outbreaks have risen progressively since, with almost 800 cases reported in 2010-11, the FAO said.

"The general departure from the progressive decline in 2004-08 could mean that there will be a flare-up of H5N1 this autumn and winter, with people unexpectedly finding the virus in their back yard," Mr Lubroth.

US:Time for India, China to revisit their position on Syria

The Obama Administration has urged both India and China to "revisit their position" on Syria even as US intensified its international campaign against the authoritarian regime. "We are certainly speaking to them (India and China) in New York," State Department spokesperson Victoria Nulandtold, referring to the talks being held in this regard at the UN headquarters in New York.

"We are speaking to them in Capitals. I think our message publicly has been clear. The Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said in her interview that she thought it was time for India and China to revisit their position. So those conversations continue," Nuland said, but did not elaborate what kind of conversations the US was holding with these two countries.

She said there were countries that were still trading oil and gas with Syria and countries that have not renounced their willingness to send arms to Syria.

"So we are working to strengthen that coalition and continue to ensure that the message from the international community has teeth. Nobody is satisfied with the situation in Syria. It's abhorrent and repulsive, and our efforts will continue," Nuland said.

she added, and frankly, we continue to believe that the UN Security Council ought to more strongly condemn the violence than it has. We are working on more sanction measures, and we will continue to do so."

A tropical storm in China: Heavy loss

Early Tuesday the storm was further north in Jilin province and moving northeastward with winds of 29 mph (47 kph). It says Muifa should continue to weaken though winds could gust up to 39 mph (62 kph) along the coast.

A tropical storm caused losses of about 3.1 billion yuan ($480 million), destroying hundreds of homes as it battered the country's east coast before slamming into North Korea on Tuesday.

Tropical Storm Muifa hit the North Korean coast overnight with winds gusting up to 52 miles per hour (83 kilometers per hour).


The National Disaster Reduction Committee said 1.35 million people were evacuated, 600 houses destroyed and another 4,800 damaged as Muifa skirted China's eastern coast.

There were no confirmed deaths in China, but one person was missing after a boat sank, and four people were killed in neighbouring South Korea.

In Shanghai, hundreds of flights had to be cancelled and thousands of fishing boats were called back to port over the weekend.

US oil giant ConocoPhillips said the storm had forced it to suspend clean-up operations on a two-month-old oil spill off the coast of Shandong province.

Authorities had expressed concern that Muifa could cause destruction similar to that unleashed by Typhoon Saomai in 2006, which was the worst to hit China in 50 years and killed at least 450 people.

China says cyber hacking claims ‘irresponsible’

Chinese state media on Friday condemned as “irresponsible” suggestions the country was behind a massive global cyber spying campaign uncovered this week by a US computer security firm.

California-based McAfee described the sophisticated hacking effort as a “five-year targeted operation by one specific actor”, without naming a country, but analysts and reports said China was the likely culprit.

The People’s Daily – the mouthpiece of the Communist Party said the claim that China hacked victims including the United States, United Nations, defence contractors and the International Olympic Committee.

China’s first response to the claims that It is irresponsible to link China to Internet hackers.

McAfee said it had discovered the hacking campaign dubbed “Operation Shady RAT” by gaining access to a command and control server in a Western country used by the intruders and examining its logs.

This was “particularly intriguing and potentially pointed a finger at a state actor behind the intrusions, because there is likely no commercial benefit to be earned from such hacks.

He sais, The victims also included the governments of Canada, India, South Korea, Taiwan, the United States and Vietnam.

The attacks involved sending infected emails to employees of the targeted companies. When opened, the emails implanted malware and established a backdoor communication channel to the command and control server.

China has been accused by the United States, Canada and other nations of spearheading online attacks on government agencies as well as companies, although the Beijing government has always denied this.

In June, Internet giant Google said a cyber-spying campaign originating in China had targeted Gmail accounts of senior US officials, military personnel, journalists and Chinese political activists.

Security experts cited said, they believed the hackers may have been looking for clues on government attitudes to major resource projects.

Chinese hackers have also been accused of attacking sites critical of Beijing.

In April a US lawmaker urged Washington to protect a popular activist site after it was hit by hackers apparently upset at a petition to free artist Ai Weiwei, then in detention

China blames terror camps in Pakistan

China on Monday blamed "extremists" trained in terror camps in Pakistan for orchestrating attacks on civilians in the troubled Xinjiang province, where 20 people, including alleged militants, were killed in violent incidents over two days.

While nine people were killed in a violent attack on Saturday, another 11, including five suspected militants, were killed in another attack on Sunday night.

The regional publicity department said in a statement that a "group of armed terrorists" broke into a restaurant in the city centre in Kashghar about 4 pm yesterday and killed the restaurant owner and a waiter besides setting fire it.

"They then ran out and hacked civilians indiscriminately, leaving four dead and 12 injured, while police and fire fighters were striving to put out the fire," it said.

Terming it a "premeditated terrorist attack", it said police opened fire and killed four suspects at the scene, while another suspect died later in hospital.

The area was cordoned off and traffic restrictions were imposed on major roads and squares.

A statement by the Kashgar municipal government said militants trained by the 'East Turkistan Islamic Movement' in Pakistan were responsible for the recent flare up in violence.

"A group of religious extremists led by culprits trained in overseas terrorist camps were behind the weekend attack on civilians in China's far-western Xinjiang," state run Xinhua news agency quoted the statement as saying.

 It said, "Initial probe has shown that the heads of the group had learned skills of making explosives and firearms in overseas camps of the terrorist group East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) in Pakistan before entering Xinjiang to organise terrorist activities."

The Xinjiang region witnessed massive riots in 2009, when almost 200 people were killed in its capital Urumqi, following which China launched a major crackdown againsUyghur Muslim separatists.

This is perhaps the first time that China has pointed fingers at its close ally Pakistan while referring to ETIM camps there. Xinjiang shares its borders with Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) and a lot of trade between China and Pakistan is routed through Kashghar as it is located close to the border.

The attacks resembled the 2009 riots and following up incidents in which Uyghurs had attacked Chinese Han settlers in Urumqi in what police called "a severely violent terrorism case" organised and premeditated by terrorist groups.
A crackdown ensued by security forces on ETIM, which China accuses of fomenting trouble in the region, besides Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer, who lives in US in exile.