A human rights activist today urged Hong Kong to deport the daughter of Robert Mugabe if it is confirmed she is studying at a local university and the Zimbabwean president is funding her education.

A child born in Galway in January has a better chance of becoming a top sportsman or woman than someone born in Dublin later in the year, it emerged today.

IRISH children aspiring to become top performers in sport are more likely to be born early in the year and come from rural areas or smaller towns.

The bird flu strain that killed 24 people in east Asia earlier this year and resurfaced in recent weeks has become endemic to the region, and the virus could trigger a global health crisis if it goes unchecked, a new study says.

THE 10 Asian countries hit by the rapid spread of bird flu that has killed at least eight people and threatens to develop into a large-scale epidemic vowed yesterday to fight it together.

Canadian officials have conceded that precautions at Toronto hospitals were not enough to prevent new SARS infections, while Japanese doctors in Taiwan today examined whether the outbreak on the developed island might mean that Japan is also at risk.

Hundreds of people have been advised to go into quarantine, after health chiefs announced a new cluster of 20 or more possible SARS cases in Toronto.

The fight against SARS in Hong Kong took two big steps forward today as the World Health Organisation lifted a travel warning and local researchers said they found the virus in civet cats that appear to have spread it to humans.

WORLD Health Organisation experts were being sent to a crowded province in China where SARS is spreading fast, while research published yesterday suggests the illness is much more deadly than other respiratory diseases.

Health officials are warning that SARS has not yet peaked in China where it began, as countries around the world work to deny the virus a toehold in their territory.

SCIENTISTS have confirmed the identity of the virus that causes the lethal new disease known as severe acute respiratory syndrome, the World Health Organisation said yesterday, marking an important step toward developing new drugs to combat the disease.

A new genetic sequencing of the SARS virus has proved conclusively that it came from animals, researchers in Hong Kong said today.

A new and dangerous type of common cold virus was named today as the chief suspect behind the deadly Sars infection that has caused 100 deaths.