The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Bangkok - The regional director of the World Health Organization's Western Pacific Regional Office says the bird flu virus is proving far more lethal than the SARS virus that struck Asia and other parts of the world last year. Last week, the WHO estimated that the bird flu virus, called H5N1, could infect up to 30 per cent of the world's population. The organization also predicted it could kill up to seven million people. But WHO regional director Shigeru Omi now says that estimate is conservative and it is more likely up to 50 million people could die if the bird flu becomes a pandemic. Thirteen Asian countries have promised to co-operate by sharing information and research work in an attempt to ward off the growing threat of an avian flu pandemic. Bangkok - Myanmar's opposition party says its leader Aung San Suu Kyi has had her house arrest extended until September 2005. Suu Kyi, the winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, has been held by the military government since May 2003. Beijing - Authorities in Central China are holding out little hope of finding alive the 116 men trapped in a coal mine in Shaanxi province. They have confirmed that 50 miners are dead. Another 127 managed to escape. A local Communist party secretary from a village near the Chenjiashan mine, has blamed the mine's officials for the deaths, saying production should have stopped after a fire this month.
