A bird flu outbreak in northern China that sparked the culling of about 370,000 birds lies along a migration route that spans from East Asia to Australia, it was reported today, as officials continued killing thousands of birds east of Beijing.

JAPAN plans to ask the United States to move some US marine bases from its southernmost prefecture of Okinawa to a location outside Japan, a Japanese newspaper said yesterday.

Intelligence has been received by Japan indicating that North Korea may be preparing to test launch a short-range missile.

Japan is planning a major scale-back of its troubled space program by focusing on smaller satellites and relying more on other countries for launches, a newspaper report said today.

PYONGYANG called a US State Department official “human scum” for his criticism of North Korea’s leader, but the communist nation said it would still join talks on its suspected nuclear weapons programme.

THE US air force was yesterday preparing to resume spy flights off the coast of North Korea, while a Japanese report said the North may soon test-fire a missile that could reach nearly all of Japan.