UFO Info Week-End

The Hong Kong government denied a rumour that it was to be declared an infected region

The Hong Kong government denied a rumour that it was to be declared an infected region and all travel in or out of the area banned. Dr Margaret Chan, the director of health, said “categorically” that there was no such plan.The rumour sparked a wave of panic buying. Residents cleared supermarket shelves to stock up with basics.”We have adequate supplies for the needs of the citizens so there is no need for a run on food and other things,” Dr Chan said.The growing crisis is damaging economic confidence, with the restaurant and tourist trades hardest hit. Nightly television broadcasts feature Dr Chan advising viewers on the basics of personal hygiene and to “stay away from crowded places” while the epidemic lasts – which rules out almost anywhere in Hong Kong.The price of surgical masks, which are becoming de rigueur on the streets, has tripled, and handshakes as a form of greeting are being replaced by a polite bow. Tourist bookings are reportedly down by 90 per cent.The one bright bit of news yesterday was that 84 patients with Sars had recovered and been discharged. That still leaves 601 in hospital, 67 of them in intensive care, and a health service struggling to cope. Ten of the region’s 44 hospitals have Sars patients but all newly diagnosed cases are being directed to the 500-bed Princess Margaret hospital in a further measure to contain the spread.All routine surgery and outpatient appointments have been cancelled throughout Hong Kong.

There is growing criticism of the government for failing to act earlier to close schools and quarantine close contacts of infected people, as Singapore did last week. But Dr Leong Che Hung, chairman of the hospital authority, denied that the government had been slow to respond to the crisis.In mainland China, authorities urged doctors treating Sars cases to disinfect everything they touched and wear 12-layer surgical masks.China’s Foreign Ministry said Tony Blair had postponed a trip to Beijing. It denied the decision was because of Sars fears.Scientists have yet to identify the disease that has affected 1,600 worldwide and killed at least 75 people, including two who died yesterday in Ontario, Canada. Initial symptoms include fever, a dry cough and shortness of breath. Most victims have been in Asia.An American Airlines flight from Tokyo was quarantined at an airport in California yesterday after four passengers complained of suspected Sars symptoms. The passengers left the plane after two hours.In Singapore, nurses at Changi airport identified seven suspected cases during their first 20 hours of duty..

Gunmen have murdered a prominent Nigerian politician, in what appears to be the latest in a growing number of political killings before elections this month. In the past three months, hundreds of people have died in unrest, political killings and assassinations linked to a general election on 12 April, and presidential elections a week later.Emmanuel Inyang, a police spokesman, said he believed the shooting of Mr Oni was an assassination because nothing had been taken from his home “It does not appear to be a robbery. We think they were hired killers,” he said.The polls are the first organised by the current administration since it took power from a previous military regime, ending more than 15 years of military misrule, in May 1999. More than 100 European Union election monitors arrived in Nigeria in the middle of last month to observe the election, which President Olusegun Obasanjo has warned will be tarnished by the wave of violence. “Any victory emerging from an election conducted in the prevailing circumstances will be tainted by the scale of its corrupted political environment,” he said last month.The worst violence has been in the oil-producing Niger Delta region in a long-running dispute over local election boundaries around the city of Warri. Dozens of people have died, villages have been destroyed and Western oil companies have cut their output.Production in the world’s sixth largest oil exporter has been slashed by 40 per cent, adding to the pressure on world oil prices caused by the war in Iraq. Last month the Red Cross appealed for assistance in coping with the tens of thousands of people displaced by the elections unrest..

Britain proposed yesterday that a special conference of Iraqi leaders should be held to set up an interim administration to run the country after the fall of Saddam Hussein. He said: “It is certainly a British view that the UN should have a role within that at some stage.”Mr Straw will launch a diplomatic charm offensive today to try to rebuild relations with Britain’s European allies. He will try to win support for a post-war settlement in Iraq as well as aid to rebuild the shattered country.The Foreign Secretary will begin a week of meetings with a dinner with Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Minister, in Berlin. He will also fly to Paris to meet his French counterpart, Dominique de Villepin, one of the most outspoken critics of British involvement of the war.The Foreign Office admitted it would take more than “telephone diplomacy” to overcome divisions between Britain and its European allies over Iraq..