China bird flu spreads to new province

CHINA says the H7N9 bird flu has spread to a new area as it confirmed the first case in the eastern province of Shandong in an outbreak which has so far killed 22 people.

Since China announced on March 31 that the virus had been discovered in humans for the first time, most cases have been confined to the commercial hub Shanghai and three nearby provinces, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui.

Beijing and the central province of Henan have also reported cases.

The health ministry said a 36-year-old man living in Shandong's Zaozhuang city was confirmed to have the virus, according to a statement on its website.

That case and three other new ones bring the total number of confirmed infections to 108, according to official figures.

Experts fear the prospect of such a virus mutating into a form easily transmissible between humans, which could then have the potential to trigger a pandemic.

But the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday there was still no evidence H7N9 was spreading in a "sustained" way between people in China, though it was possible some family members may have infected one another.

"Right now we do not see evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission", said Keiji Fukuda, a top WHO influenza expert in a team visiting China to study H7N9.

Health experts differentiate between "sustained" human-to-human transmission and limited transmission, in which family members or medical personnel caring for the ill become infected.

Chinese health officials have acknowledged so-called "family clusters", where members of a single family have become infected, but have so far declined to put it down to human-to-human transmission.

The nine close contacts of the Shandong man were under medical observation, but so far were normal, the health ministry said.

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UK fails again to deport radical cleric

THE British government has suffered a fresh setback in its long-running legal battle to deport radical preacher Abu Qatada, but insists it will not give up trying to send him to Jordan.

The Court of Appeal refused ministers permission to challenge its ruling last month that the terror suspect, also known as Omar Othman, cannot be deported to Jordan because of human rights concerns.

"The Court of Appeal has refused permission" to the government to take the case to the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court, a spokesman for the Judicial Office told AFP.

However, the refusal is not fatal to the case because ministers are entitled to ask the Supreme Court directly to hear their appeal -- and officials indicated they would do exactly that.

"We are disappointed with the Court of Appeal's decision but will now request permission to appeal directly from the Supreme Court," a spokesman for the interior ministry said.

"The government remains committed to deporting this dangerous man and we continue to work with the Jordanians to address the outstanding legal issues preventing deportation."

There is huge frustration in London over the failure to deport a man considered "an exceptionally high-risk terrorist", who has successfully blocked his removal for eight years.

A Spanish judge once branded him the right-hand man in Europe of Osama bin Laden, although Abu Qatada denies ever meeting the late al-Qaeda leader.

The preacher was convicted in Jordan of terrorism charges in his absence, and is likely to face a retrial if he is returned.

But the European Court of Human Rights last year blocked his deportation over fears that evidence obtained through torture would be used against him in the new trial.

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Sydney protest over uni Dalai Lama snub

STUDENTS will protest at Sydney University on Wednesday over what they claim is the uni's withdrawal of support for a talk by the Dalai Lama.

The university says it did not receive any official request for an appearance by the Tibetan spiritual leader.

However, emails from the uni's vice-chancellor Michael Spence referred to a decision to "withdraw support for hosting His Holiness the Dalai Lama's planned speech", the ABC reported last week.

The report led to allegations that the university, which has close ties to the Chinese government, dropped the invitation for political reasons.

The Dalai Lama no longer makes political statements but is blamed by the Chinese government for the continued self-immolation of Tibetan monks.

The protest, organised by Students for a Free Tibet, will be held at 10am (AEST).

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EU plan to buy rebel oil aggressive: Syria

A EUROPEAN Union plan to buy oil from rebel-held areas of Syria is illegal and an "act of aggression," the Syrian foreign ministry has warned in letters to the United Nations.

"In an unprecedented decision that contradicts international law and the UN Charter ... the European Union has decided to allow member states to import petrol ... under the pretext of supporting the opposition," state news agency SANA reported, citing the letters.

"It is an illegal decision and an act of aggression."

Syrian rebels fighting President President Bashar al-Assad's troops won a fresh boost on Monday when the European Union eased its oil embargo to let them exploit the resources they control.

But the EU decision raised a furious response in Damascus.

The EU will be trading "with the so-called opposition coalition, which represents no one in Syria," the letters to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council said.

The decision is an act of "complicity in the theft of resources that belong to the Syrian people, represented by the current, legitimate government," they added.

"The European Union is following its political and economic campaign that targets the national economy and the daily bread of Syrian citizens," the ministry said, referring to EU sanctions on the Assad regime.

EU ministers' decision to ease the 2011 oil embargo will enable companies on a case-by-case basis not only to import Syrian crude but also to export oil production technology and investment cash to areas in the hands of the opposition.

Under the deal, European firms seeking to import Syrian crude or invest in the energy sector would ask for authorisation from their government, which in turn would confer with Syria's opposition National Coalition to secure its agreement.

At the start of the revolt that broke out in March 2011, Syria's oil production was slashed by almost two thirds, falling to 130,000 barrels a day in March, just 0.1 per cent of the world's total production, according to the International Energy Agency's latest estimates.

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Two Iraq ministers quit after deadly clash

TWO Sunni members of the Iraqi cabinet have resigned after security forces moved in against Sunni protesters in the north of the country, sparking clashes that left dozens dead, officials say.

"The minister of education, Mohammed Ali Tamim, resigned from his post after the Iraqi army forces broke into the area of the sit-in in Kirkuk" province, an official from Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlak's office said.

"The resignation is final, and there will be no going back."

Parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi later said at a news conference that science and technology minister Abdulkarim al-Samarraie told him by phone that he too was quitting.

Clashes between security forces and protesters in the morning at a demonstration near Hawijah in north Iraq left 27 people dead, while 13 gunmen died carrying out subsequent revenge attacks on army positions.

Later in the day, protesters west of Baghdad killed six soldiers and kidnapped a seventh, security officers said.

The resignations bring the number of ministers to leave Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's cabinet since March to four.

Agriculture minister Ezzedine al-Dawleh quit on March 8 after a protester was killed in north Iraq, and finance minister Rafa al-Essawi, some of whose bodyguards were arrested on terrorism charges in December, announced his resignation at an anti-government demonstration on March 1.

Protesters have taken to the streets in Sunni-majority areas of Iraq for more than four months, calling for the resignation of Maliki and decrying the alleged targeting of their minority community by the Shi'ite-led authorities.

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UN atomic agency, Iran to meet May 15

THE UN atomic agency says it will hold a new round of talks with Iran on May 15 in Vienna on suspected nuclear bomb-making efforts by Tehran.

"The Agency and Iran have agreed to hold further talks in Vienna on 15 May," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spokeswoman Gill Tudor said.

The meeting is "aimed at finalising a structured approach to resolving outstanding issues related to the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program," she said.

Iran has consistently rejected as unfounded what the IAEA calls "overall, credible" evidence that until 2003 and possibly since, it conducted nuclear weapons research.

Iran denies wanting or ever having sought the bomb, and accuses the IAEA of basing its conclusions on faulty intelligence from foreign spy agencies -- intelligence it complains it has not been allowed to see.

Nine rounds of talks since the publication of a major IAEA report in November 2011 on these alleged activities, have produced no breakthrough. The last was held in February.

Parallel diplomatic efforts between Iran and six major powers -- the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany, known collectively as the P5+1 -- are focused more on Iran's current activities.

The latest round with the P5+1 in Kazakhstan in early April ended with chief negotiator and EU foreign policy head Catherine Ashton saying the two sides remained "far apart".

The meeting between Iran and the IAEA comes ahead of the release in late May of the agency's latest quarterly report, which is expected to show that Tehran has continued to expand its nuclear program.

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Inflation expected to stay benign

INFLATION figures to be released on Wednesday are expected to be low enough to allow for more interest rate cuts.

The consumer price index, the key measure of inflation, is expected to rise by 0.6 per cent in the first three months of 2013 for an annual rate of 2.7 per cent, an AAP survey of 13 economists shows.

AMP chief economist Shane Oliver said continued benign inflation will leave the door open for further rate cuts by the Reserve Bank of Australia.

"In fact, an outcome of 0.4 per cent or below for underlying inflation could bring forward a rate cut to the May meeting (of the RBA board), given the soft run of global and Australian data we have seen lately," Dr Oliver said.

The median forecast for underlying inflation, which excludes volatile price movements, is 0.5 per cent in the March quarter and 2.5 per cent over the year to March.

The Reserve Bank of Australia has kept the cash rate at three per cent since the start of 2013, after reducing it four times in 2012.

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