disease was discovered in samples taken from wild swans in the Balkans country. In a bid to prevent any spread of the disease authorities began killing all poultry in a three-kilometer (two-mile) radius around the lake where the dead swans were found, a veterinary official said.

It is expected that during the next few days several thousands chickens and other poultry will be killed in the quarantined area around the lake in the eastern village of Zdenci. But a local expert noted that the dead swans belong to a species spread throughout Europe and warned that there might be another source of the disease which has not been detected yet.

"The swans which died in Croatia certainly did not come from Romania or Turkey," where the disease has been already registered, Dragan Radovic told journalists. In Romania, officials said Friday a suspected new case of bird flu had been detected in the northeast only hours after assurances that the outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus had been contained to two southeastern locations.

Germany began Saturday enforcing a temporary ban on outdoor poultry rearing in order to combat bird flu, confining fowl to sheds with spot checks on farms and fines of up to the equivalent of 30,000 dollars (25,000 euros) for violations.

The neighboring governments of Austria, Switzerland and the principality of Liechstenstein have banned rearing free range poultry for the next few months. The French agency for food safety AFSSA recommended increased scrutiny of wildlife, but stopped short of proposing poultry be confined.

French               agriculture   

minister Dominique Bussereau said Saturday that the "psychosis" about bird flu was "completely out of proportion", adding that the level of protection was "at the maximum". The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned against "scaremongering" but it also said each additional human case was making it easier to develop human-to-human transmission of the disease.

In Thailand on Friday doctors reported the seven-year-old son of a Thai farmer who died of bird flu had also contracted the disease, but they said the virus had not mutated and still cannot pass easily among humans. The farmer -- the 61st human victim of the virus worldwide since late 2003 -- died Wednesday after slaughtering and eating a sick chicken.

Migratory birds believed to be carriers may next take the virus to Africa, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said, warning that the continent would be an "ideal breeding ground" because of close contact between people and animals. Scientists have said Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda were particularly threatened as they host millions of migratory fowl flying to warmer climes during the European winter.

Senegal -- with west Africa's largest bird sanctuaries -- has asked people to take any poultry found dead to the nearest vet for inspection. Australia has drawn up a bird flu battle plan including the possibility of holding airline passengers in quarantine in aircraft hangars for six days, a report said Saturday.

The government plan would be put into operation if bird flu mutated into a human-to-human virus and posed the risk of a pandemic.

LONDON (AFP) - A parrot imported from South America has become the first bird to die of avian flu in Britain, bringing the danger of the deadly virus much further west across the European Union as the global battle against the disease continued.

Meanwhile yet another avian influenza outbreak was reported in Russia, this time in the southern Urals region of Chelyabinsk, and among swans at a Croatian lake. The parrot, which died in British quarantine, tested positive for the H5 strain of the bird flu virus.

Further tests on the dead parrot were being conducted this weekend, and on all birds kept with it, to determine whether they were infected with the lethal H5N1 strain, which has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003. Results could be known Sunday.

The parrot arrived in Britain from Suriname in South America last month and had been held with a consignment of birds from Taiwan, which have since been killed, Britain's agriculture ministry said. It was not infected with any disease before being exported from Suriname, Edmund Rozenblad, chief veterinary officer at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fishery and Cattle, said Saturday. "Suriname is still bird flu disease-free," he said.

The British government on Saturday urged the European Union to ban imports of all live wild birds from countries around the world in a bid to stem the spread of bird flu. "The government is calling on the European Commission to ban live wild birds," a spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) told AFP, after the parrot tested positive for bird flu. Imports of poultry, which are domesticated birds, would still be allowed, said the official.

In Moscow, the emergencies ministry said 31 birds in Sunaly village in the Chelyabinsk region had died, and in another six cases the diagnosis had been confirmed. A Russian agriculture ministry official said Friday the risk of the lethal strain occurring in Moscow or surrounding area was minimal, despite an outbreak in Tula, 300 kilometres (190 miles) south of Moscow.

Russian veterinary services said Friday they suspected that the bird flu virus had spread to 24 areas, including 20 in the Novosibirsk region of Siberia, three in the Kurgan region one in the southern region of Stavropol.

Croatian authorities stepped up measures to fight the flu Saturday after      the     virus    causing   the