GERMANY this weekend ordered that all farm birds be kept indoors starting on 1 March to prevent them from contracting bird flu from migrating fowl.

Agriculture minister Horst Seehofer said the measure would be in force for at least two months, depending on circumstances.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has devastated poultry stocks and killed dozens of people in Asia, as well as in Turkey, where four children died last month of the disease. It has also been detected in birds in Russia, Romania, Croatia and Turkey.

Six killed in Afghan fighting

FIERCE fighting involving US warplanes and Afghan troops in southern Afghanistan have left at least six Taliban rebels and three police dead, officials said on Friday.

Ghulam Muhiddin, the chief of administration in southern Helmand province, said 100 Afghan police and army troops were hunting dozens of militants in Sangin district, and US planes had bombed the area.

Ukraine gas blast kills five

FIVE people have been killed and 17 injured in a natural gas explosion in a residential building in eastern Ukraine, officials said on Friday.

The blast occurred in the city of Luhansk.

Elton musical gets the stake

LESTAT, the Elton JohnBernie Taupin vampirethemed musical, has cancelled its first two weeks of preview performances in New York.

The production is to undergo serious revisions.

It received scorching reviews during its San Francisco try-out, which ended on 29 January. The San Francisco Chronicle called the show "didactic, disjointed, oddly miscast and confusingly designed".