SHANGHAI: Nearly 18,000 geese died on a poultry farm in northeast China after being stricken by the H5N6 bird flu virus last month, the agriculture ministry said. As many as 20,550 geese on the farm in Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, showed symptoms of avian flu and 17,790 birds died, the ministry said on its website on Monday. The ministry sealed off and sterilized the infected area, besides culling and safely disposing of almost 69,000 geese, it added. The National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory confirmed that the geese had the H5N6 virus. In May, a 49-year-old man in China’s Sichuan province died of the H5N6 bird flu virus, which domestic media described as the world’s first known human infection with the strain.

LONDON / The leading car in the super mini segment, Ford’ s Fiesta is the top-selling car in the UK. Ford’s finest manages to tick the practicality and economy boxes that are so crucial for any small car but it’s also a blast to drive, whether you opt for the entry-level version or the Fiesta ST hot hatch. Ford said Fiesta sales had now topped 4,115,000, taking the model past the previous record holder, the Ford Escort .First launched in 1976,

LONDON The government’s most senior security official, Charles Farr, detailed how searches on Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as emails to or from non-British citizens abroad, can be monitored by the security services because they are deemed to be “external communications”. It is the first time that the government has admitted that UK citizens, talking via supposedly private channels in social media such as Twitter direct messages, are deemed by the British government to be legitimate legal targets that do not require a warrant before intercepting. The 48-page detailed defence of mass monitoring by Farr, who is director general of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism, develops a legal interpretation that critics say sidesteps the need for traditional intercept safeguards. The document, released on Tuesday, provoked calls for the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) to be overhauled urgently, as well as allegations that the government was exploiting loopholes in the legislation of which parliament was unaware.