Japan culling birds to fight avian flu

Tokyo: Japan has begun slaughtering more than 330,000 farm birds to contain its first outbreaks of a highly contagious strain of avian flu in nearly two years, the government said.

The planned cull of some 16,500 ducks at a farm in the northern prefecture of Aomori and nearly 320,000 chickens at a farm in central Niigata prefecture began yesterday, said top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga.