News In Brief

Bird flu spreads outside China
Afp, Taipei

Taiwan yesterday reported the first case of the H7N9 bird flu outside of mainland China.
The 53-year-old man, who had been working in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou, showed symptoms three days after returning to Taiwan via Shanghai, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said, adding that he had been hospitalised since April 16 and was in a critical condition.
China has confirmed 108 cases and 22 deaths since the first infections were announced on March 31, with a higher proportion of cases in older people.

France adopts gay marriage law
Afp, Paris

French lawmakers on Tuesday defied months of angry protests to approve a bill that is to make France the 14th country worldwide to legalise same-sex marriages.
Opponents of the law vowed to fight on, quickly filing a constitutional challenge and promising more demonstrations to pressure President Francois Hollande into backing down from signing the bill.
If Hollande signs the law, France will join eight other European countries -- the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland and Denmark -- in legalising same-sex marriages.

New Iraq violence kills 15
Afp, Kirkuk

Violence in Iraq killed 15 people yesterday, including 12 security force personnel and gunmen who died in attacks apparently launched in revenge for deadly clashes at a protest, officials said.
Fighting between security forces and protesters near the northern town of Hawijah left 27 people dead on Tuesday, and sparked a wave of revenge attacks in which a further 27 people were killed that day.
The revenge attacks continued yesterday, leaving nine security forces members and three gunmen dead.

S Korea, US extend nuclear pact
Afp, Seoul

South Korea and the United States have agreed on a two-year extension to a civilian nuclear pact that Seoul wants amended to allow it to produce its own nuclear fuel, officials said yesterday.
The current pact, signed in 1974, had been due to expire next year. The extension was agreed to allow more negotiations on the heated topic of allowing the South to reprocess spent fuel rods.

'China, Romania hackers' hub'
Afp, Washington

China and Romania were by far the largest sources of confirmed hacking attempts last year, with China's mostly from state-controlled sources aimed at data theft, a new report said Tuesday.
Verizon's 2013 Data Breach Investigations report said 30 percent of 621 confirmed attacks were sourced back to China, 28 percent to Romania, and another 18 percent to the United States.
By far most of the attacks in China were focused on data theft, the report said, while those from Romania and most of those in the United States were about theft for financial gains.
Out of the 621 breaches, 19 percent came from state-linked actors, almost all of those from China, and were not financially driven, the report said.

Malaysian poll violence spikes
Afp, Kuala Lumpur

Hundreds of cases of Malaysian election violence including a bomb explosion have been reported since campaigning for tightly contested May 5 polls got under way four days ago, police said yesterday.
In the latest incident a bomb exploded in northern Penang state late Tuesday near a political gathering of the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, resulting in a 35-year-old security worker being injured by flying debris. Police later found a second bomb in the area and detonated it.