The Dutch authorities are racing to contain a bird flu outbreak at two poultry farms and the same strain – H5N8 – has also infected chickens and wild birds in north Germany. A farm in the eastern Dutch town of Puiflijk and another nearby have been told to cull 200,000 chickens. Chickens are also infected at a small poultry farm in Nordfriesland, part of Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein state. H5N8 is very low-risk for humans, but the economic cost can be significant. Health experts say people should avoid touching sick or dead birds, and chicken and eggs are safe to eat if cooked thoroughly, as that kills the virus. A poultry farm in Frodsham, north-west England, also has cases: a cull of 13,000 birds was ordered there on Monday. A smaller cull is under way at a farm in Kent, in the south-east, where the H5N2 avian influenza strain was detected this week. H5N8 has been detected in migratory birds from Russia. A huge cull was carried out on farms in Russia’s western Kostroma region late last month, to contain an outbreak. The Dutch farms affected are just outside Nijmegen, 30km (19 miles) from the German border.(BBC)…[+]

Serbia’s leading religious figure has contracted coronavirus, days after attending a large public funeral for a senior bishop who died of Covid-19. Patriarch Irinej, the 90-year-old head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, was admitted to hospital on Wednesday. He led the funeral of the church’s most senior cleric in Montenegro, 82-year-old Amfilohije Radovic, on Sunday. Mourners gathered at the event without masks and many kissed the bishop’s body as it lay in an open coffin. This was despite a major spike in coronavirus cases in both Serbia and Montenegro, and a warning from the authorities that the event posed a risk to public health.(BBC)…[+]

The United Nations has rebuked Israel for carrying out what it said was the biggest demolition of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank for a decade. Some 73 people, including 41 children, were made homeless when their dwellings were knocked down in the Bedouin settlement of Khirbet Humsa, in the Jordan Valley, the UN said. The Israeli military said the structures had been built illegally. But the UN called the Israeli actions a “grave breach” of international law. According to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), 76 structures – including homes, animal shelters, toilets and solar panels – were destroyed when Israeli bulldozers moved in late on Tuesday.(BBC)…[+]

Austrian police have carried out a series of raids and made 14 arrests after a gunman murdered four people in the heart of Vienna on Monday. The man, described as a 20-year-old Islamist terrorist who had been freed from jail last December, was shot dead by police as he fired on passers-by.

Security has been tight in the Austrian capital as police launched a manhunt for any further attackers. But authorities now believe the gunman may have acted alone. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said the four who died were an elderly woman, an elderly man, a young man and a waitress. Another 22 people were wounded.

One of the women who died was German, Germany’s foreign minister said. Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said there was no indication that a second assailant had been involved, though that could no be ruled out. Police were still assessing some 20,000 mobile phone videos of what happened. The Islamic State (IS) group claimed in a video on its online propaganda channel that it was behind the attacks, without providing any evidence.(BBC)…[+]