Official: N. Korea fires missiles to threaten U.S. spy planes - Yonhap

North Korea fired two additional short-range missiles Monday in an apparent move to threaten U.S. spy planes monitoring a site where the regime is believed to have conducted its second nuclear test, a South Korean official said.

“The launches took place at around 5:03 p.m.,” the official said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity. North Korea had earlier launched a surface-to-air missile around noon, hours after it said it detonated a nuclear device in an underground bunker.

• Scale of N. Korean Test Unclear – New York Times
• N. Korea conducts ‘successful’ nuclear test – Washington Post
• World leaders condemn North Korea, Urge Action – Reuters
• In Quotes: World Leaders React – BBC
• China “resolutely opposes” N. Korean test – Xinhua

Of those surveyed, 33 percent had a favorable view of the United States, 43 percent had a negative view, 14 percent were neutral and 10 percent said they did not know, Ipsos said.

In contrast, Obama received favorable ratings averaging 48 percent in the region as a whole. Approval ran as high as 58 percent in Jordan and was lowest among Egyptians, who gave Obama favorable ratings of 35 percent, Ipsos said.

Read Entire Article

WHO head indicates full flu pandemic to be declared – Reuters

The World Health Organization is likely to raise its flu alert to the top of its six-point scale and declare a pandemic, its director-general indicated in an interview published on Monday.

In remarks setting the scene for another alert increase, but without saying when, WHO chief Margaret Chan warned against over-confidence following a stabilization in the number of new cases of the H1N1 strain that has proved deadly in Mexico.

“Level 6 does not mean, in any way, that we are facing the end of the world. It is important to make this clear because (otherwise) when we announce level 6 it will cause an unnecessary panic,” she told Spanish newspaper El Pais.

• Mexico to begin lifting flu curbs – BBC
• Health officials are wary but hopeful – Washington Post
• Goes person to pig – Could it jump back? – Associated Press

Now that the swine flu virus has passed from a farmworker to pigs, could it jump back to people? The question is important, because crossing species again could make it more deadly.

The never-before-seen virus was created when genes from pig, bird and human viruses mixed together inside a pig. Experts fear the virus that has gone from humans back into pigs in at least one case could mutate further before crossing back into humans again. But no one can predict what will happen.

“Could it gain virulence? Yes,” Juan Lubroth, an animal health expert at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, said Sunday. “It could also become milder. It could go in both directions.”

• Key developments on Swine Flu worldwide – Associated Press