BEIJING: Chinese authorities stepped up efforts to combat bird flu in Beijing as the European Commission faces increasing pressure yesterday to ban all wild bird imports after new cases of the influenza appeared in Russia, Croatia and British quarantine.

On Friday, British authorities announced that a parrot that died in quarantine had been infected with bird flu. Results of tests for H5N1 were due out today.

The enhanced veterinary checks in China came after Beijing last week reported its first outbreak of bird flu in more than two months, this time on a

farm in its northern Inner Mongolia region, where 2,600 birds died, with 91,000 others culled.

Chinese leaders have warned the country faces a "grave" threat from avian influenza.

Officials in Beijing on Saturday began checking chickens, ducks, geese and even carrier pigeons being raised as pets in the city to make sure they were properly vaccinated or isolated.

President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have issued a directive for an all-out effort to prevent the spread of the virus.

Britain's proposal for the EU ban on live wild bird imports will be raised at an EU agricultural ministers' meeting in Luxembourg today and tomorrow.

Health experts from 50 countries are set to gather in Copenhagen today to assess the response to avian flu, amid concerns H5N1 could mutate into a form easily transmitted between humans, causing a global pandemic.

Also today, in Ottawa, health ministers and experts from 30 countries are scheduled to meet to forge a coordinated international front against bird flu.

Croatian authorities continued yesterday to kill thousands of domestic birds in in a 3km radius around a lake near the eastern village of Zdenci where earlier six dead swans were found to have been infected by the virus.

A new outbreak of avian flu was detected over the weekend in Russia's south Urals region of Chelyabinsk. Thirty-one birds in the Sunaly village died, and in six cases bird flu was confirmed.

In all, fowl in seven areas of Russia have been infected. ­ AFP