China 'gold medal' for executions

Amnesty said the hidden extent of executions in China, where figures are secret, might mean the Olympic host was behind the bulk of them worldwide.
But China's foreign ministry defended the death penalty, saying China limited it to a small number of criminals.
At least 1,252 people are known to have been executed in 24 countries in 2007.

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Last year Chinese authorities put to death 470 people. It is believed that many more have been killed by Chinese authorities but that the government is trying to hide it. Last year China killed more people than any other counrty and there are 60 crimes that result in the death penalty.

China reports bird flu outbreak in Tibet, human death

BEIJING (AFP) — Chinese authorities on Tuesday reported a fresh bird flu outbreak among poultry in Tibet, a day after confirming a 22-year-old man in central China had died of the deadly virus.

The agriculture ministry said 132 poultry had died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in a village outside the regional capital Lhasa and about 7,700 birds had been slaughtered to bring the outbreak under control.

It was the second outbreak of bird flu in the Himalayan region this year.

In January, about 1,000 birds died and 13,000 were slaughtered during an earlier outbreak in Gongga county, which lies about 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Lhasa.

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The latest outbreak of bird flu in China was announced shortly after authorities confirmed the eighteenth human bird flu fatality. It was declared late on Monday that a 22-year-old man from Hunan province died from the H5N1 strain. Scientists' main concern is that the flu will change into a form which can be transferred more easily by humans, and cause a global outbreak of the disease.

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