REBEL shareholder David Nabarro has won his appeal for a second extraordinary general meeting to be held to allow shareholders vote on the future of McInerney Holdings.

IN this, the Great Age of Anxiety, hard-core pessimists or even high-handicap worriers have more than enough calamities, imagined or otherwise, to fuel their agitation.

Experts suspect the current spread of bird flu in Asia, Africa and Europe is a result of trade in infected live birds rather than transmission through wild birds, the UN official co-ordinating the global fight against avian influenza said today.

The world should expect more bird flu outbreaks in the coming winter months, the UN official co-ordinating the global fight against the virus warned today.

The United Nation’s bird flu chief said yesterday that the three-year estimate of funds needed to stem the deadly virus in Africa could be as high as $1bn (€782m).

The spread of bird flu in Europe and Africa is likely to slow down over the summer months, but the threat of a global pandemic will not decrease, international health officials said at the start of a conference in Sweden today.

Bird flu could reach the Americas in six to 12 months or even sooner following its rapid expansion through Asia, Europe and Africa, the UN bird flu chief said yesterday.

The spread of bird flu from Asia to eastern Europe and now west Africa has increased the chance that the virus will mutate and cause a possible pandemic among humans, says the United Nations’ expert on the disease.

A bird flu outbreak that killed four children in Turkey this month seems to have stabilised after authorities destroyed 1.5 million fowl to contain the virus, and no human cases have been reported since January 18.

TURKEY yesterday reported two new cases of people infected with deadly bird flu as a top World Health Organisation (WHO) official warned that the threat of a pandemic was growing daily.

Southeast Asian agriculture ministers have agreed to launch a three-year plan next year aimed at stamping out the menace of bird flu in the region – a move they hope will win enough international aid to halt the disease before it becomes a catastrophic global epidemic with the potential to kill millions.

THE World Health Organisation yesterday moved to dampen fears over predictions quoted by one of its own officials that a pandemic stemming from the bird flu virus ravaging parts of Asia could kill as many as 150 million people.

The World Health Organisation today moved to dampen fears over alarming predictions quoted by one of its own officials that a pandemic stemming from the bird flu virus ravaging parts of Asia could kill as many as 150 million people.

A top UN public health expert warned yesterday that a new flu pandemic is expected at any time and could kill anywhere between five million and 150 million people – depending on action taken now to control the bird flu epidemic sweeping through Asia.

A top UN public health expert warned today that a new flu pandemic is expected at any time and could kill anywhere between 5 million and 150 million people - depending on action taken now to control the bird flu epidemic sweeping through Asia.

THE United Nations last night began to mobilise what it called the biggest relief operation in its history to cope with the disaster caused by one of the worst tsunamis in history.

AT least 70,000 people have died in refugee camps in Sudan’s Darfur region since March, said the UN’s health agency today.

AT first sight, it might not seem that Beverly Flynn and Martin Cullen have a lot in common. She’s from a dyed-in-the-wool Fianna Fáil family and he’s a political waverer.

Robert Evans, Geneva

At least 300,000 people in southern Africa could die over the next six months as a result of severe food shortages following two years of drought, the UN health agency warned today.