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Deadly bird flu strain may have spread within Turkey

By wire services
Published January 9, 2006

DOGUBAYAZIT, Turkey - Fears rose Sunday that a deadly strain of bird flu was spreading in Turkey after preliminary tests showed two children and an adult tested positive for the virus in Ankara - the first known cases outside an eastern region.

Health officials cautioned that the H5N1 strain so far has only been confirmed in humans who were in close and prolonged contact with fowl but said they were monitoring the virus for fear it could mutate into a form easily transmissible among humans and spark a pandemic.

Since Wednesday, 10 suspected or confirmed cases of humans infected with the strain have been detected in Turkey. That includes two siblings who died last week and who were the first confirmed victims of the strain outside East Asia. Preliminary tests show a third sibling who died was also infected with the strain.

JERUSALEM - Palestinians running in Jan. 25 parliamentary elections would be allowed to campaign in Jerusalem, Israeli police said today, reversing a ban on Palestinian political activity in the city both sides claim as their capital.

Hatem Abdel Khader, a senior Palestinian politician, saw the decision as an indication Israel would permit east Jerusalem residents to participate in the voting, a key Palestinian demand.

Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said police and Palestinians would meet today to discuss procedures.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran said Sunday that inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency would remove seals from some nuclear facilities by today, opening the way for Tehran to resume research on fuel production.

The development heightened concerns in the West that Iran was moving toward building atomic weapons.

Iran told the International Atomic Energy Agency last week it would resume research today, and officials said talks with the inspectors over restarting the research could wrap up by today at the latest, the official Islamic Republic News Agency said. Iran has not specified the type of research.

Russian officials in Iran, meanwhile, continued talks about Moscow's proposal that the two countries conduct uranium enrichment, a process that can produce nuclear fuel for reactors or atomic weapons depending on the degree of enrichment, on Russian territory.

Officials from the two countries plan to meet again in Moscow on Feb. 16, state-run Iranian TV said.

The Russian proposal, backed by the European Union and the United States, was designed to ease concerns that Iran would use the fuel to build a bomb.

But Iran's senior nuclear negotiator, Javad Vaidi, said the country still wants the fuel cycle on its own soil.

BEIJING - China will invest more than $3-billion over the next five years to clean up the Songhua River, a key source of drinking water for tens of millions of people that was polluted in November by a toxic spill that flowed into Russia, reports said Sunday.

[Last modified January 9, 2006, 00:57:08]