Russian expert warns of 'bird flu pandemic'

A Russian scientist has said during an international bird flu conference that the virus would cause a global pandemic resulting in thousands of deaths, but did not say when it would happen.

Speaking at the 6th International Bird Flu Summit in Bali, the deputy director of the Russian Health Ministry's Institute of Epidemiology, Viktor Maleyev said: "The world has not seen pandemics for many years, although flu causes them from time to time."

"Diseases know no borders and when they are transmitted by birds, it is twice as true," Maleyev said.

Although no cases of human-to-human transmission of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu have been reported, scientists fear the virus could mutate into a strain that could pass easily between people, causing a global pandemic.

"Bird flu is a global problem, and it is also a problem for Russia which is not isolated from the rest of the world," the scientist said.

No human fatalities or cases of humans infected with the virus have been reported in Russia, where the first outbreaks were registered in southern areas of the country and Siberia in 2005. The latest outbreak occurred near Moscow in February, resulting in the culling of thousands of poultry.

"Every incident raises tension, as there is still a lot we do not know. We are only aware of 1% of all the micro organisms that are in our environment, and 99% of them we know nothing about," the health expert said.

"Each year 25 million severe respiratory infections are recorded in Russia," Maleyev said, "We know the cause of a mere 10% of these incidents," adding that it was not clear what caused the remaining 90% and how many people failed to seek medical treatment.

"Often when an infection fades away, people think that it is down to the health service, but they [infections] often appear and disappear regardless of what we do," he noted.

Maleyev said, however, there was a lot that could be done to fight the virus and avoid widespread panic, including public health awareness campaigns, training for medical staff, drawing up a vaccination action plan and rapid testing for the disease.

Igor Krasilnikov, a senior R&D specialist at the Moscow-based Mikrogen company told the summit on Thursday that Russia was ready to cooperate with Southeast Asia in producing bird flu vaccines.

According to the World Health Organization, avian influenza has so far killed 230 people out of 364 confirmed cases worldwide.

Forty years on, Yuri Gagarin's death still a mystery

Forty years after he perished in a plane crash, the death of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, remains the subject of speculation and conspiracy theories.

Gagarin died exactly four decades ago, on March 27, 1968, a little under seven years after becoming the first human to fly to space and orbit the Earth. His death came during what should have been a routine practice flight in a MiG-15UTI fighter plane, which crashed near the town of Kirzhach in Central Russia.

Soviet officials made no official announcement as to the cause of the crash and all the details of the accident were archived and marked "Top Secret."

On Thursday, a Russian Air Force official rejected suggestions that a new probe should be launched into Gagarin's death, saying: "No additional investigation is necessary." The Kremlin also turned down an appeal for the case to be reopened in 2007.

The Air Force official also categorically rejected calls for the hermetically-sealed barrels containing the fragments of Gagarin's plane to be reopened.

However, despite top-level reluctance to look into the causes of the accident, even during Soviet times there were whispers and rumors that the cosmonaut's death was due to something more than a routine training flight gone wrong. Although Gagarin was in the process of retraining as a fighter pilot when his plane went down, both he and his instructor, Vladimir Seryoghin, were hugely experienced pilots.

The theories as to the 'true' cause of the crash ranged from the plausible to the outlandish: in 1986, a belated inquest suggested that the afterburners of a passing jet may have caused the crash. Others alleged that the then Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, had ordered Gagarin's death due to feelings of envy over the charismatic cosmonaut's popularity.

Fringe theories had it that Gagarin had been taken away by aliens, while another theory, voiced in the 1990s by Finnish conspiracy theorists, claimed that Gagarin had never been in space and that the whole thing had been an elaborate Soviet propaganda exercise. Gagarin was murdered, they said, to protect the secret.

Following the tragedy, Gagarin and Seryoghin were buried in the Kremlin walls, an honor reserved for the communist state's most respected and famous citizens. Gzhatsk, a town in the Smolensk Region, was also renamed after Gagarin.

Gagarin left a wife and two daughters, and perhaps the most fitting tribute to the Soviet cosmonaut can be found in the letter he wrote to them before his momentous 1961 flight into space. Although he said he implicitly "trusted the technology" that was to take him on his momentous journey, he wanted to leave a message to his family in case something went wrong. After all, as he said in the letter, anyone of us might "get knocked down by a car tomorrow."

"I have lived honestly," he wrote, "and tried to bring some benefit to other people, small as this may be. I read sometime during my childhood the words of V.P Chkalova [the Soviet pilot who first flew non-stop across the North Pole] -'If you are going to be - be first.' I have tried to do this and will go on trying."

Forty years after Gagarin's death and less than 24 hours after the Endeavour space shuttle returned from its mission to the International Space Station, the legendary Soviet cosmonaut's feats may seem technically humble in comparison to the lengthy spacewalks carried out by today's astronauts. However, Gagarin himself realized that space travel would continue to progress, and that his mission was just the first step, writing in his 'farewell' letter: "This is history! The start of a new era!"

Hillary Obama

U.S. jets escort Russian bombers off Alaska coast

Two U.S. Air Force F-15s escorted two Russian Bear long-range bombers out of an air exclusion zone off the coast of Alaska, U.S. military officials said Wednesday.

U.S. radar picked up the Russian turbo-prop Tupolev-95 planes about 500 miles off the Alaska coast.

The U.S. fighters from Elmendorf Air Force Base were dispatched to meet the bombers and escorted them out of the area without incident, the officials said.

The United States maintains the air exclusion zone off the coast of Alaska, barring unidentified aircraft or aircraft that don't file flight plans inside that area.

The last case of Russian aircraft approaching the U.S. coastline or ships in the Pacific was in February.

Then, four Bear bombers flew near the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, with one of them flying about 2,000 feet from the Nimitz's deck.

Russia's Defense Ministry said at the time there was no violation of flight regulations during the incident. A ministry official described the flights as standard operating procedure for air force training.

Meanwhile, U.S. military officials say the incidents are not a concern. They say it's the Russian military flexing its ability and presence.

Wee man

A Chinese man has been recognised as the shortest adult in the world.

He Pingping, 20, of Huade town, Wulanchabu city, who is 2ft 5ins tall, has received a certificate from the Guinness Book of Records.

Guinness confirmed his world record after his height was recorded three times - morning, noon and night - at the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region Hospital.

His parents and two sisters are all normal height, reports Northern News. His record and picture will be in the 2009 edition.

Plan a bank raid - students told

Secretarial students at a Chinese university are being asked to plan a bank robbery for an assignment.

They have to work out how to rob a bank with a team of six within seven minutes, reports Information Times.

The students are all majoring in secretarial studies at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies.

They have to come up with a robbery action plan for a team comprising a leader, a lock breaker, a driver, two robbers and a gunman.

Professor He, who came up with the assignment, says it's aimed at teaching students how to allocate resources economically and efficiently.

"Students majoring in the arts usually do not have the training in thinking deliberately that students majoring in science do. So this also trains their thinking ability," he said.

The assignment involves teams of five or six students, with each team having to make its own presentation.

One student said: "We've never taken an assignment as seriously as this one. On our team, each person came up with a plan, and we picked the best one. We even timed ourselves on the college grounds."

Professor He doesn't think the assignment will encourage students to rob a bank for real: "They're adults, and know what's right and wrong," he added.

Bosnia war invalids clash with police

A few hundred Bosnian Serb war invalids, many of them amputees in wheelchairs or on crutches, clashed with police on Wednesday during a protest to demand better benefits.

Police in full riot gear tried to stop them from proceeding towards the main government building but the protesters forced their way through their cordon.

One person was taken to a hospital with slight injuries, hospital officials said.

Goran Kostic, leader of the regional association of war invalids, warned that he would begin a hunger strike unless Serb Republic Prime Minister Milorad Dodik received the protesters.

The invalids want their payments increased by 50 percent and also seek better protection of their rights. (Reporting by Mirna Soja; Writing by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Richard Balmforth)