<B>HANOI. Vietnam kills ducks, tightens bird flu checks.</B> Vietnam has slaughtered 54 ducks in a southern province after tests showed they had a strain of avian influenza, the third such finding this year, but there have been no outbreaks of the disease, an official said yesterday. “We found the ducks at two farms infected with H5 so we killed them all,” said Mai Van Hiep, director of the Animal Health Department in Ben Tre province, 85 km (50 miles) southwest of Ho Chi Minh City. The tests were part of bird flu surveillance following a vaccination campaign to protect poultry from the H5N1 virus, Hiep said. The virus has killed 42 of Vietnam’s 93 human cases since late 2003. Wild birds, ducks and geese can carry H5N1 without showing symptoms. Last week, officials said 53 wild storks had been culled at a theme park in Ho Chi Minh City after tests showed they had the H5 strain, the second such case in Vietnam this year.

<B> KANTALE. Sri Lanka rebels say army offensive kills 50 civilians. </B>Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels said yesterday more than 50 civilians were killed 200 injured in their territory in the island’s east during a major army offensive to capture a disputed water supply. Fifteen of the dead were taken to a hospital in the rebel-held town of Vakarai, to the south of the site of the fiercest fighting since a 2002 truce, S. Puleedevan, head of the Tigers’ peace secretariat said. There were another 35 bodies still to be moved, he said. The military said it had no details, but troops said they made a push early on Thursday to wrest control of a disputed rebel-held water supply, which the rebels unblocked on Tuesday and which triggered the fighting in the first place.

<B>BAGHDAD. Suicide bomber kills 35 in southern Iraq. </B>A suicide bomber detonated a belt of explosives on his body near a highly revered Shiite shrine in southern Iraq yesterday, killing at least 35 people and injuring 60, an official said. The bomber blew himself up while being patted down by policemen near the Imam Ali mosque in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, said Dr. Munthir al-Ithari, the head of Najaf’s health directorate. Witnesses and officials had earlier reported two bomb explosions. Al-Ithari said a second bomb went off, but in a different part of the town. A police official said the second bomb targeted a US military convoy, but caused no injuries. Al-Ithari said 30 deaths and 60 injuries were recorded so far in the suicide bombing, and the toll is likely to go up. Among the dead are 22 men including five policemen.The bombing occurred at about 10.30 a.m. in the Grand Market – packed with pilgrims and shoppers – in front of the Imam Ali mosque, which contains the tomb of Prophet Muhammad’s son-in-law, Ali. It is one of the world’s most sacred shrines for Shiites, the minority sect of Islam.

<B>SEOUL. South Korea edges closer to flood aid for North. </B>The South Korean government is edging closer to joining private groups in sending a one-off aid package to flood-ravaged North Korea that would include rice and building materials, officials said yesterday. Three big storms hit North Korea last month, causing flooding that killed at least 151 people, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. A pro-Pyongyang paper put the death toll at 549, with 295 missing. Loss of farm land was heavy, which could tip the already impoverished communist state into famine, experts have said.

<B>MOSCOW. Russia’s Putin orders action after huge art theft. </B>Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a nationwide inventory of cultural treasures yesterday to establish how many more artworks could be missing after a number of systematic thefts at St Peterburg’s Hermitage museum. Putin told ministers to set up a commission to start work on the audit by September 1, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said. Officials said last week that $5 million worth of enamel and silver artefacts had been stolen from the Hermitage, which houses works by numerous old and modern masters. Police have detained the son and husband of a curator. An investigation revealed the museum had not conducted an inventory for decades. Art experts say Russian museums, galleries and archives have been chronically under-funded for years and that many more art treasures may have been stolen.

<B>JOHANNESBURG. Lions kill two guards at S. Africa game farm. </B>Lions attacked and killed two South African security guards outside a game farm, the SAPA news agency said. The guards were mauled by three lions early on Wednesday at the farm near Hennenman in South Africa’s Free State province, police said. The lions – two females and one male – apparently escaped from an enclosure due to a break in an electric fence. “The owner of the lions has shot and killed all three,” an official with the Free State’s environment department told SAPA.