The remaining restrictions on livestock imposed in the wake of the foot-and-mouth outbreak in the UK will be lifted today after experts declared the disease had been eradicated.

The farmer at the centre of the latest foot and mouth scare said today he is sure his livestock do not have the disease.

Hopes that the foot and mouth outbreak had been contained were dealt a blow today after a new suspected case of the virulent virus was discovered.

Farmers in the UK are attempting to get back to work today after restrictions on the movement of animals in the wake of the foot and mouth outbreak were relaxed.

There is a “strong possibility” that the Pirbright laboratory facility is the source of the foot-and-mouth outbreak, it was announced tonight.

Tests have confirmed that there has been a second outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the UK, British Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said today.

A second outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease is suspected in the protection zone in Surrey, England, a spokeswoman for Defra confirmed tonight.

Experts were tonight probing whether the recent floods in England may be behind the foot and mouth outbreak, as the battle to contain the disease continued.

The spectre of the foot-and-mouth epidemic that brought chaos to Britain six years ago returned tonight when a fresh outbreak was confirmed.

Taiwan plans to lodge a protest with Britain over allegations that it exported fowl infected with the bird flu virus, a Taiwanese health official said today, after the farm that raised the birds was found to be free of the disease.

The Taiwanese birds said to have infected a parrot in Britain with bird flu were inspected for flu before leaving the island and received a clean bill of health, a Taiwanese official said today.

A blanket ban on the import of live birds into the European Union is expected to be agreed today as more cases of the most deadly strain of avian flu are confirmed.

A PARROT that died in quarantine in Britain was thought to have caught the deadly strain of H5N1 bird flu from Taiwanese birds being held in the same compound.

A bird that died in UK quarantine has been found to have a severe strain of avian flu, the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs confirmed.

A parrot which died in quarantine in the UK had avian flu, the British Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs said tonight.

The EU was readying precautionary measures tonight, including the stockpiling of more anti-viral drugs, amid confirmation that the bird flu virus found in Turkish poultry was the H5N1 strain that scientists worry might mutate and cause a pandemic in humans.