“Cambodia, China, Indonesia and Laos continue to report new outbreaks in poultry,” an FAO spokesman said.Indian authorities will hold an emergency meeting in New Delhi tomorrow of health and agricultural officials from seven South Asian nations to draft a strategy to prevent the spread of bird flu.In Thailand, tests showed that a clouded leopard died of bird flu on 27 January at Khao Khiew Zoo, 44 miles south of Bangkok. Some Asian countries, as well as the US, are being hit with a milder bird flu strain not thought to pose a danger to people.. Two separate tests showed the leopard had succumbed to bird flu, but the exact strain was unclear Officials are awaiting the results of a third test. Tests are also being carried out on more than 200 cranes that died at a bird park 130 miles north of Bangkok.Ten governments in the region have been dealing with strains of bird flu since South Korean officials reported an outbreak in December. If independently confirmed, this would be the first known case of the disease found in an exotic animal or a member of the cat family. Now a zoo in northern Thailand has even isolated two giant pandas over fears they could catch the disease.

After killing millions of chickens and ducks across Asia, bird flu is feared to have jumped to some exotic species, possibly killing a leopard and cranes in Thailand and pheasants in Taiwan. “But as far as I’m concerned it’s an opportunity to be a world champion, and the last sprinter who was a world champion on these shores was Linford For me, to be a world champion would be a fantastic thing It would be the best moment of my athletics career. And it could only set me up for the summer.”A summer of the cleanest of competition for Olympic sprint glory, possibly.BiographyJason GardenerBorn: 18 September 1975 in Bath.Events: 100m outdoors, 60m indoors.Club: Bath and Wessex AC.Personal bests: Outdoors: 100m: 9.98 (1998) 150m: 15.99 (1994) 200m: 20.65 (1995) 4 x 100m: 37.73 (1999).Indoors: 50m: 5.61 (2000) 60m: 6.46 (1999). 200m: 21.97 (1994).Titles: European Indoor 60m champion (2000, 2002).Also: Seventh 100m final 1999 World Championships; Reached 2000 Olympic 100m quarter-finals.

Bronze 60m World Indoor Championships (1999, 2001); silver 60m European Indoor Championships (1998); silver 100m World Junior Championships (1994).. The promising thing now, with the Athens Olympics on the horizon, and with this year’s World Indoor Championships in Budapest just three weeks away, is that Gardener is threatening to break his European record, without having yet been extended thus far in the 2004 indoor season.”I know I’m going to run faster,” he says, “whether there’s someone on my shoulder or not. No British sprinter has yet won the 60m at the World Indoor Championships.”Different people have different perspectives on the indoor season,” Gardener pondered. Christie won World Championships gold, too – outdoors, over 100m.