The likelihood of a human flu pandemic is very high, US Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said as he begin a tour of south-east Asia to co-ordinate plans to combat bird flu.

US President George Bush is asking Congress for as much as $50bn (€40.2bn) in immediate aid for the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe, and the White House indicated today more money would be needed eventually.

WITH the last weary refugees rescued from the Superdome and Convention Centre, New Orleans turned its attention yesterday to gathering up and counting the dead across a ghastly landscape awash in perhaps thousands of corpses.