<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">REUTERS/Nacho DoceA demonstrator wears a mask depicting Brazil's former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva while covered with the Brazilian flag in front of riot police as he takes a picture of them during a protest calling for the impeachment of Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff in Sao Paulo, Brazil, December 13, 2015.</div></div></div>Good morning! Here's what you need to know.Tuesday is a big day for <keyword id="6354868" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="UK">UK</keyword> inflation data. At 9:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m. ET), month-on-month and year-on-year changes for the UK's retail price index, consumer price index, house price index and producer price index are published.The "ISIS attack" on a French teacher was a fake. A teacher who had claimed he was assaulted in a school north of Paris by a man acting for Islamic State was making the story up, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-french-teacher-invented-story-about-islamist-attack-judicial-source-2015-12">the Paris prosecutor's office told Reuters on Monday.</a><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-french-teacher-invented-story-about-islamist-attack-judicial-source-2015-12"> </a>Turkey could be an EU member soon. The European Union revived Turkey's membership bid and opened accession talks with Serbia, showing how a migration crisis<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-french-teacher-invented-story-about-islamist-attack-judicial-source-2015-12"> and Russia's presence in the Balkans has prompted the EU to rethink plans to stop expanding.</a>Standard Chartered is axing bankers. The bank has axed at least half a dozen oil and gas advisory banking roles in recent weeks, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-exclusive-stanchart-axes-top-bankers-in-energy-ma-team---sources-2015-12">ending an eight-year attempt to build a global energy M&amp;A team.</a>VW cars will get tested again. German authorities will review emissions and fuel usage of Volkswagen diesel vehicles in a second testing round <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-germany-to-test-vw-diesel-emissions-again-after-fixes-media-2015-12">once the company has installed fixes in cars caught up in a cheating scandal.</a>Stock market optimism is fading. Stock markets in developed economies are expected to continue outperforming emerging markets next year, but optimism among <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-more-modest-year-for-global-stock-markets-europe-to-lead-poll-2015-12">hundreds of market strategists polled by Reuters in the past week has faded compared with just a few months ago.</a>Kosovan lawmakers teargassed the parliament. Protesting opposition lawmakers released tear gas in Kosovo's parliament on Monday in an effort to foil a vote on the government's 2016 budget, f<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-teargassed-kosovo-lawmakers-adopt-2016-budget-2015-12">orcing MPs into a sideroom where the measure was adopted.</a>Toshiba is cutting thousands of jobs. Toshiba is looking to cut up to 7,000 jobs, as it looks to streamline operations in the wake of an accounting scandal. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-toshiba-to-cut-up-to-7000-jobs-nikkei-2015-12">Most of the job cuts will be in the company's lifestyle segment, which includes consumer appliances.</a>There's bird flu in France. The bird flu virus found in five regions of southwest France over the past three weeks has no risk of spreading to humans, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-french-bird-flu-poses-no-risk-to-humans---minister-2015-12">the French farm minister said, basing his statement on a study released by the food and health agency.</a>China joined Europe's development bank. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said it had accepted China as a member, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-china-joins-european-development-bank-2015-12">handing the world's second biggest economy investment routes into Europe, Africa and Middle East.</a> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/50-cent-lifestyle-illusion-testifies-court-bankruptcy-curtis-jackson-2015-7">50 Cent testifies his lifestyle is an illusion</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="BoeGRmdjoMc4sxqQrQiRAH_i98W5p0IW" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

10 things you need to know before European markets open

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:900px"><div class="image"></div>REUTERS/Carlos BarriaChickens are pictured on the floor of a food market in downtown Shanghai, April 5, 2013. Chinese authorities slaughtered over 20,000 birds at a poultry market in Shanghai on Friday as the death toll from a new strain of <keyword id="95867" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Bird-flu">bird flu</keyword> mounted to six, spreading concern overseas and sparking a sell-off in airline shares in Europe and Hong Kong. All the 14 reported infections from the <keyword id="1627169" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="H7N9-bird-flu">H7N9 bird flu</keyword> strain have been in eastern <keyword id="1334" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="China">China</keyword> and at least four of the dead are in Shanghai. </div>Twenty days after visiting the poultry market, Hongming was dead.
He had been infected with the new bird flu virus, first reported in Shanghai, called H7N9.
Hongming was known patient number 8. He worked in Jiangsu Province, China. He was 38 years old and the fifth person to die of the new virus.
Sharon Sanders, Editor-in-Chief and President of <a href="http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showpost.php?p=489904&amp;postcount=1">FluTrackers</a> — where a full list of flu cases is available — <a href="http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=203429">recreated the timeline of his illness</a> from the story <a href="http://www.ce.cn/xwzx/gnsz/gdxw/201304/13/t20130413_24286508.shtml">originally told in Chinese</a> by Wei Chen Xiaoyan Zhao of China Economic Net.

The Frightening Story Of A Man Who Bought A Chicken And Then Died Of Bird Flu

Nature, one of the most important scientific journals out there, just announced the winners of its <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/1.14367" target="_blank">2013 Most Important People of the Year</a>. You've probably never heard of many of them.
The winners were chosen based on their work and connections to some of the biggest stories of the year, including the Russian Meteor and the infant who was "functionally cured" of HIV.
You can read the full descriptions of <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/1.14367" target="_blank">the winners' work in this week's Nature</a>. Here's our synopsis.
Feng Zhang, MIT - For editing DNA.
Zhang is a biologist, but his big development this year is more biochemical in nature. He adapted the RNA sequences that bacteria use to edit DNA to make it easier for scientists to manipulate it cheaply, easily, and precisely in the lab. His finding that this system works in mammalian cells was <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6121/819.full" target="_blank">published Jan.3 in Science.</a>
Tania Simoncelli, The American Civil Liberties Union - Defending the freedom of human genes.
After years of battle, the ACLU finally reached the highest court in the land - the U.S. Supreme Court - to defend the right of human genes to be free. They went up against Myriad Genetics, which had patented the human BRCA gene to use in their breast cancer risk test kit. The ACLU <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-says-dna-cant-be-patented-2013-6" target="_blank">won the case on June 13</a> of this year.
Deboarah Persaud, Johns Hopkins University - "Functionally" curing a toddler of HIV.<div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image on-image">Johns Hopkins MedicineDeboarah Persaud, of Johns Hopkins University, "functionally cured" an infant of HIV.</div></div> A first in the anti-HIV field, a baby that was infected with HIV when born was "functionally cured" of the virus when doctors started anti-retroviral therapy very early on during its life. It was found to be free of the virus even after five months off of drugs. The find was <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/doctors-say-they-have-cured-baby-of-hiv-2013-3">published in the New England Journal Of Medicine in March</a>.
Michel Mayor, University of Geneva - Finding a sister Earth.
<div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image on-image">Cristina Sanchis OjedaKepler 78b is a very Earth-like exoplanet found this year.</div></div>After thousands of exoplanets have been found circling stars out there in the night sky, what's one more? It's the most important when that one more is Kepler 78b - the first Earth-like planet found. Mayor and his team found the planet, which is so close to its star that its surface is molten. Mayor found the first exoplanet in 1995, and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/exoplanet-kepler-78b-earth-twin-2013-10">discovered this latest in October</a>, just before he'd planned to retire.
Naderev Saño, Philippines delegate to the U.N. - Fasting for climate change.
When Typhoon Haiyan ravaged his home country of the Philippines, Saño was at the United Nations climate talks in Warsaw. After a tearful and moving speech, he fasted for 14 days until the delegates reached a deal to keep climate negotiations on track.
Viktor Grokhovsky, Ural Federal University - Hunting down the Russian Meteorite.
After the Chelyabinsk meteor exploded over Russia in February, Grokhovsky spent weeks tracking down individual pieces of the space rock. He worked to analyze the meteor's trajectory as it entered the atmosphere, and analyzed how big it might have been when it exploded.
Hualan Chen, of China's National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory - For tracking the new H7N9 bird flu virus.
Less than two days after confirming a new and deadly bird flu virus was infecting people in China, Chen's team set to work to find out where it was coming from - the live poultry markets in Shanghai. The quick (and transparent) reaction to the emerging virus has been widely appreciated by the world's infectious disease community. She also published a paper describing what mutations it would take to make the virus jump between mammals better.
Shoukhrat Mitalipov, Oregon Health &amp; <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword> University - For cloning cells from an embryo.
Embryonic stem cells made with a person's own DNA would hold the potential to cure any number of diseases. After years of fighting red tape to do this cloning experiment in humans, Mitalipov created a stem cell line with all the properties of an embryonic stem cell but also all the DNA of the donor "adult" skin cell. His work was published <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/human-clone-embryonic-stem-cell-lines-2013-5">in the journal Cell in May</a>.
Kathryn Clancy, University of Illinois, Champaign - Unearthing sexual harassment in the field.
After hearing stories of women being sexually assaulted while doing fieldwork, Clancy took action and started polling colleagues about their experiences. She found that 59% of people responding to their survey had experienced inappropriate sexual comments, and 18% reported physical harassment.
Henry Snaith, Oxford Photovalics - For making better solar panels.<div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image on-image">Oxford PhotovoltaicsHenry Snaith, of Oxford Photovalics developed a new type of solar cell that's cheap and efficient. </div></div>Snaith used a special type of semiconductor to make cheaper and more efficient solar cells. His work pushed this new type of solar cell to the forefront of the field. It was published in the <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/344.abstract" target="_blank">journal Science in October</a>.

10 People You've Never Heard Were Just Named The Most Important Scientists Of The Year 

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image">Rocky Mountain Laboratories, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIHThe <keyword id="30350" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Middle-East">Middle East</keyword> Respiratory Syndrome <keyword id="10860" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Virus">virus</keyword>, MERS, or CoV</div></div>While the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS CoV) <a href="http://life.nationalpost.com/2013/07/05/mers-coronavirus-doesnt-yet-have-pandemic-potential-yet-but-hajj-other-factors-could-change-course-of-disease-experts/" target="_blank">hasn't yet reached pandemic potential</a>, the <keyword id="43588" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="World-Health-Organization">World Health Organization</keyword> (WHO) is worried enough about the virus to call its <a href="http://www.euro.who.int/en/what-we-do/health-topics/communicable-diseases/influenza/news/news/2013/07/who-to-convene-emergency-committee-on-mers-cov" target="_blank">second-ever emergency meeting.</a>
The first emergency meeting happened in 2009 and the subject was the H1N1 bird flu virus, which sickened thousands. The meetings are part of a relatively new system called the International <keyword id="6354750" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="health">Health</keyword> Regulations Emergency Committee, which was implemented after the SARS outbreak in 2002.
The talks will take place on Tuesday, July 9, and Thursday, July 11, over a phone conference with experts from around the world. The virus was first reported on back in September of last year, but researchers still haven't been able to figure out where it's coming from and how it's infecting humans.
Eighty people have been sickened and 45 have died, according to the latest numbers. Most cases are either in <keyword id="50996" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Saudi-Arabia">Saudi Arabia</keyword> or in people who had recently visited that country. Researchers have seen limited human-to-human spread, as well.
During the meeting, researchers may decide to label the virus an "international health emergency," <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jZgD73yP_A_g8iz_waqPon3AdWsA?docId=CNG.fd89fa498d9c8d42de84f9e4406754f1.231" target="_blank">according to the AFP</a>. Experts are worried about the potential for spread during the annual Hajj pilgrimage — one of the world's largest gatherings, taking place in Mecca and Medina.

For Only The Second Time In History, The World Health Organization Calls An Emergency Meeting About A Virus

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div>REUTERS/StringerA girl, who was previously infected with the <keyword id="1627169" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="H7N9-bird-flu">H7N9 bird flu</keyword> virus, waves as she is being transferred to a public ward from the ICU at Ditan hospital in Beijing, April 15, 2013. </div>The story of the first death from <keyword id="1334" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="China">China</keyword>'s new <keyword id="95867" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Bird-flu">bird flu</keyword>, dubbed H7N9, was broken by an employee at China's Hospital No. 5, in Shanghai, over China's twitter-like social network <keyword id="670351" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Weibo">Weibo</keyword>.
The employee seemed to be upset because they were not provided with personal protective equipment, like masks, to ensure they did not catch the mystery disease.
From <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/04/23/the_big_one?page=0,4">Laurie Garrett's feature story about the flu in Foreign Policy</a>:
And on March 6, someone posted on Weibo, "Ask the hospital to tell the truth." The anonymous posting went on to detail that a Shanghai family shared a terrible flu, and a 27-year-old man with similar symptoms had recently checked in. The Weibo user appeared to be a Hospital No. 5 employee, as he or she noted the lack of protective gear for doctors and nurses and expressed personal fear.
The stories of the Li family, those initially infected in Shanghai, and a young butcher who was also infected, spread among the social networking site and over blogs, when people learned that the families of the victims were being charged for the treatments.
At that point, doctors didn't know what the virus was that was killing these people. We now know that it's H7N9, making its first appearance in humans.
Since these first cases, more than 108 people have fallen ill, and 22 have died of the new virus.
Read <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/04/23/the_big_one?page=0,7">the entire feature over at Foreign Policy</a> for everything you need to know about H7N9 and how it's like, and inline the SARS and H5N1 bird flu epidemics.

A Hospital Employee Broke The H7N9 Bird Flu News Over China's Twitter

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div>Rocky Mountain Laboratories, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIHThe <keyword id="30350" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Middle-East">Middle East</keyword> Respiratory Syndrome <keyword id="10860" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Virus">virus</keyword>, MERS, or CoV</div>The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/h7n9-bird-flu">H7N9 bird flu virus in China</a> isn't the only scary new virus on the docket this spring.
A second new virus, similar to SARS and named Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS CoV), has been popping up in the Middle East since last summer and was first <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1211721">described in the New England Journal of Medicine </a>in November.
The virus is a coronavirus, the same family of viruses that unleashed SARS a decade ago. SARS infected 8,273 people and caused 775 deaths worldwide.
It is making waves this week as recent cases have been found in France and 13 new cases have been announced in the past couple weeks, <a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2013/05/international-group-settles-on-n.html">according to Science Magazine</a>.
The virus has killed a total of 18 people, <a href="http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=205075">according to FluTrackers</a>. While the number of people infected by this new virus is low, 33 according to reports, there's concern over a few clusters of cases that could indicate that the virus can be transmitted easily between people.
The virus has also traveled outside of the Middle East — to the United Kingdom, France, and Germany — by people who had recently visited the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, or Saudi Arabia.
The virus caused secondary infection in the family members of one infected person in the U.K., as well as eight <keyword id="6354750" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="health">health</keyword> care workers who involved in the original outbreak of the virus in Jordan in April 2012 — two of whom died.
What's become worrisome now are two new clusters that have popped up in recent weeks.
<a href="http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/05/09/us-coronavirus-france-idINBRE94814U20130509?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=health&amp;utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter&amp;dlvrit=309303">Reuters is reporting</a> that two people who had contact with the French patient — another person from his ward and his doctor — have also fallen ill with the virus.
<a href="http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/saudis-find-2-more-coronavirus-cases-bringing-cluster-to-15-1.1274514">According to CTVNews</a>, citing health authorities in Saudi Arabia, 15 patients infected with the virus had all been to the Al-Moosa Hospital in the town of Hofuf before they got sick. Seven of them have died.
Saudi Arabian deputy health minister, Dr. Ziad Memish, <a href="http://www.promedmail.org/direct.php?id=20130505.1693290">implied in a ProMED posting</a> that the cluster had been controlled, "actions implemented and fully applied by 1 May 2013 have been effective to date in preventing new cases related to this cluster from emerging."
<a href="http://www.firstpost.com/world/sars-like-virus-who-to-visit-saudi-hospital-where-7-people-died-767401.html">According to Firstpost</a>, the World Health Organization is currently investigating the hospital outbreak.
According to <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23503-threatwatch-is-the-saudi-virus-a-new-sars.html">New Scientist's Threatwatch</a>, the virus that researchers sequenced from those patients had three new mutations — though officials didn't say what impact those mutations had on the viruses' lethality or likelihood of spreading from person to person.
This could mean that the virus was spreading from person to person, at least in that hospital. If an airborne version of the virus escapes the hospital it could be another SARS in the making.
Researchers are also worried that the virus could cause infections in otherwise healthy people and they won't show extreme or obvious symptoms. These kind of weak infections could let the virus adapt to humans, <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23503-threatwatch-is-the-saudi-virus-a-new-sars.html">New Scientist reports</a>.

Deadly SARS-Like Virus Spreads To France And Saudi Arabia

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div>REUTERS/StringerA girl, who was previously infected with the H7N9 <keyword id="95867" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Bird-flu">bird flu</keyword> virus, waves as she is being transferred to a public ward from the ICU at Ditan hospital in Beijing, April 15, 2013. </div>The death toll from a new strain of bird flu influenza virus, H7N9, continues to rise. 
As of April 15, the World <keyword id="6354750" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="health">Health</keyword> Organization (WHO) has <a href="http://www.who.int/csr/don/2013_04_15/en/index.html">reported 60 confirmed cases of patients infected with H7N9</a>, 13 of whom have died. Another current report on ABC has the <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/bird-flu-nasty-virus/story?id=18967854#.UW2qSSv71JE" target="_blank">total deaths up to 14</a>. 
So far there is no evidence that the virus can spread from human to human. That's a good sign. Human-to-human transmission would give this outbreak legs to turn into a potentially devastating pandemic. 
The Beginning
The first deaths from H7N9 were reported at the end of March in eastern <keyword id="1334" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="China">China</keyword>.
An 87-year-old man from <keyword id="6368000" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Shanghai">Shanghai</keyword> died on March 4 after becoming ill on Feb. 19, and a 27-year-old man died on March 10 after becoming ill on Feb. 27, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/two-people-in-china-die-from-bird-flu-2013-3">Agence France Presse reported</a>. 
Both victims suffered from fever, coughs, and had trouble breathing.
The number of reported deaths and infections has increased since then.
Here's a curve of the confirmed cases reported to WHO. Red stands for confirmed deaths; green stands for confirmed cases. 
<div class="image-container click-to-enlarge" style="width:620px"><div class="image"><a title_source="WHO" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/516da2a46bb3f73a0b000030-960/screen%20shot%202013-04-16%20at%203.11.17%20pm.png"></a></div><a href="http://www.who.int/influenza/human_animal_interface/influenza_h7n9/01_ReportWebH7N9Number.pdf">WHO</a></div>
The Source 
Human H7N9 infections <a href="http://www.who.int/influenza/human_animal_interface/influenza_h7n9/RiskAssessment_H7N9_13Apr13.pdf">seem to be associated with infectious poultry</a>.
Unlike H5N1, birds can be infected with the H7N9 virus and show no symptoms. Since officials don't know which birds and how many are infected, <a href="http://www.who.int/influenza/human_animal_interface/influenza_h7n9/RiskAssessment_H7N9_13Apr13.pdf">WHO warns</a> that "further human cases of infection should be expected."
In response, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/china-bird-flu-h7n9-virus-2013-4">officials have conducted mass slaughters at poultry markets</a> throughout Shanghai, while inspectors check restaurants and supermarkets. 
Geographic Distribution
The virus remained limited to Shanghai, or eastern China, until this week. There are now two confirmed cases of infected patients in Beijing. 
A 7-year-old girl, whose parents are in the live poultry trade, was admitted to the hospital on April 11, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-bird-flu-strain-spreads-to-beijing-2013-4">AP reported</a>. 
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/16/world/asia/china-birdflu/index.html">According to CNN</a>, on April 16, a 4-year-old boy, whose parents are involved in poultry and fish trading, was found to be infected with the virus, although he showed no symptoms.
Here's a chart from <a href="http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=203306">Flutrackers.com</a> that shows the frequency of cases by week. 
<div class="image-container" style="width:615px"><div class="image"></div><a href="http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=203306">Flutrackers.com</a></div>
This chart, from April 9, shows the age distribution of bird flu patients. At that time, there were 28 reported infections, including 9 deaths. 
<div class="image-container click-to-enlarge" style="width:618px"><div class="image"><a title_source="Fluetrackers.com" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/516da52669bedd282a00000a-960/age%20graph%20h7n9%2020130409.jpg"></a></div><a href="http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=203306">Fluetrackers.com</a></div>
<a href="http://www.who.int/influenza/human_animal_interface/influenza_h7n9/RiskAssessment_H7N9_13Apr13.pdf">According to WHO</a>, cases are in either Eastern or Northern China. This includes three provinces — Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang — and two municipalities — Beijing and Shanghai. 
In comparison, the bird flu H5N1 never showed this wide of a distribution across provinces. 
A <a href="https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&amp;msid=200073663810992252651.0004d96b6096833780da3&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=m&amp;ll=32.379961,119.465332&amp;spn=6.492605,10.700684&amp;z=6&amp;source=embed">Google map</a> shows H7N9 cases in China. Red shows deaths; blue shows those who are infected. 
 View <a href="https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&amp;msid=200073663810992252651.0004d96b6096833780da3&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=m&amp;source=embed&amp;ll=32.379961,119.465332&amp;spn=6.492605,10.700684">H7N9 map</a> in a larger map

How The Deadly New Bird Flu Is Spreading Across China 

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div>REUTERS/William Hong </div>The World <keyword id="6354750" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="health">Health</keyword> Organization's (WHO) influenza expert, Keiji Fukuda, said <keyword id="95867" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Bird-flu">bird flu</keyword> H7N9 is "<a href="http://www.wpro.who.int/china/mediacentre/speeches/2013/20130424/en/index.html">one of the most lethal influenza viruses we have seen</a>" and called the virus "<a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2013/04/h7n9-is-an-unusually-dangerous-v.html">unusually dangerous</a>."
<a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/04/19/177793443/with-bird-flu-right-now-anything-is-possible">Last week Fukuda said</a>: "Anything can happen. We just don't know."
The virus is about <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/04/23/the_big_one?page=0,2">nine times as deadly</a> as the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/1918-flu-pandemic-pictures-2012-8">Spanish Flu of 1918</a>, which killed 50 million people. (Though, keep in mind that they didn't have modern medicine.) The virus seems to spread from birds to humans easier than previously feared bird <keyword id="43544" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Flu">flu</keyword>, H5N1, which has killed 360 people in the last decade.
The virus could be even more dangerous if it adapts to pass easily between humans, and even worse, if it can spread through the air. 
The virus has mutations that make it infect humans, according to <a href="http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2111975_2111976_2112158,00.html" target="_blank">virologist Ron Fouchier</a>, who told <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/04/23/the_big_one?page=0,4">Laurie Garrett of Foreign Policy</a> that "this virus really doesn't look like a bird virus anymore; it looks like a mammalian one."
This comes in the wake of the news that the first case of the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/taiwan-confirms-first-case-of-new-bird-flu-outside-china-2013-4">H7N9 bird flu outside of China</a>. The patient, a 53-year-old man in <keyword id="46274" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Taiwan">Taiwan</keyword>, was traveling in the Chinese city of Suzhou for work, and started showing symptoms after returning to Taiwan.
He is still alive, but in "severe but stable condition" in the isolation ward at a Taiwanese hospital.
Three of the health care workers who had contact with the patient are showing flu-like symptoms, but authorities aren't sure if they are infected with the bird flu virus. The 139 people that the man came into contact within Taiwan are being monitored by authorities.
Another worrying sign of the virus' spread: It seems to have <a href="http://empres-i.fao.org/empres-i/2/obd?idOutbreak=175559&amp;rss=t">popped up in an animal in Vietnam</a>. There are very few details in the Global Animal Disease Information System, but the report says that national authorities have confirmed a low pathogenic avian influenza that tested positive for H7N9, in Long An, Vietnam. There's no information on what animal the virus was infecting. [UPDATE: this seems to have been <a href="https://twitter.com/flutrackers/status/327455045970968578">an error in the reporting system</a>.]
The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-new-bird-flu-could-be-way-more-widespread-than-tests-are-showing-2013-4">test for the virus doesn't appear to be all that effective</a>, only detecting it weakly in even the most severely infected individuals. Only a tiny number of birds have tested positive as well. This means that it's possible the virus is far more widespread than first thought, because the tests aren't detecting it.
The total number of bird flu cases as of April 25 is 108 infected, with 22 deaths, <a href="http://www.who.int/csr/don/2013_04_23/en/index.html">according to the WHO</a>. Only nine people who tested positive have rehabilitated enough to be released from the hospital. The rest are undergoing multiple organ failure and aren't likely to fully recover, if they survive at all.
A vaccine against the virus is at least six weeks away, <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/04/24/h7n9-vaccine-at-least-6-weeks-away">according to US News &amp; World Report.</a> Then, it will need to be tested on animals before we can try it out in humans.
Asian airports are already checking for fever in passengers, and using infrared technology to detect raised body heat, which could indicate that a passenger is sick.
A major upcoming concern is that <keyword id="1334" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="China">China</keyword>'s biggest travel day, May Day, is approaching and if the virus does indeed pass between humans, the virus could catch a ride of out of the country and spark an international panic.
Here's the latest Google map of the patients (except the pink ones, which are cases of H1N1). [<a href="https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&amp;msid=200073663810992252651.0004d96b6096833780da3&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=m&amp;source=embed&amp;ll=31.765537,117.553711&amp;spn=25.088582,39.506836&amp;z=5">See an updated map</a>]<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:620px"><div class="image"></div><a href="https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&amp;msid=200073663810992252651.0004d96b6096833780da3&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=m&amp;source=embed&amp;ll=31.765537,117.553711&amp;spn=25.088582,39.506836&amp;z=5">Google maps</a></div>

WHO Says The New Bird Flu Is One Of The Most Lethal Viruses They've Seen

<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right" style="width:463px"><div class="image">Tami Chappell/Reuters</div></div>All it took was a relatively small mistake for dozens of scientists at one of the U.S. government's most secure laboratories to be exposed to a potentially deadly strain of anthrax bacteria.
None of the 75 scientists affected in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/health/up-to-75-cdc-scientists-may-have-been-exposed-to-anthrax.html">reported safety breach</a> at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta have shown symptoms of anthrax. And anthrax isn't contagious, so the exposures won't endanger the broader public. But the incident still reveals the limits of safety precautions even under the most controlled possible circumstances.
Even at the CDC, and even when some of the world's most dangerous bacteria are involved, there's no such thing as absolute safety.
According to the New York Times, the anthrax exposures <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/health/up-to-75-cdc-scientists-may-have-been-exposed-to-anthrax.html">took place</a> after a sample of the bacteria was exposed to chemicals meant to render it harmless. This was a new method for disarming anthrax, which is typically de-activated through a radiation-based process. Scientists believed the chemicals had rendered the samples inert, and they were moved to a laboratory with less stringent safety requirements. 
The scientists were wrong, and 75 were exposed to live samples of the potentially deadly Ames strain of anthrax. 
CDC spokesperson Benjamin Haynes gave Business Insider a sense of how and why this mistake was made. According to Haynes, anthrax samples are usually tested 48 hours after being exposed to radiation, since that's how long it would take for radiation-treated anthrax to begin growing spores again if it hadn't been rendered inactive. This time, scientists were using a new chemical-based process for de-activating anthrax. 
After two days, if spores aren't developing on a sample, it can be assumed that the disease has been neutralized and that the sample can safely be moved to a less secure lab. "It would have been tested after 48 hours," Haynes says, "and if that sample showed that spores were reproducing then it wouldn't have worked and they would have reapplied the [chemical] process."
A laboratory employee - who has now been reassigned within CDC for the duration of an internal and multi-agency investigation that will include the Department of Agriculture - mistakenly tested the samples after 24 hours instead. At that point, the samples were not showing any additional spore growth. However, growth wouldn't have happened until the 48-hour mark. "When they reviewed the spores after 24 hours there was no growth and they believed it to be inactive," Haynes said.
So the anthrax was moved to a less secure lab environment on the assumption that it had been tested 48 hours after the chemical de-activation process had started. In fact, scientists were almost an entire day away from being able to tell whether the anthrax samples were safe for human exposure.
As University of Maryland professor and <a href="http://www.cissm.umd.edu/papers/files/pathogens_project_monograph.pdf">pathogen control expert</a> John Steinbruner explained to Business Insider, this was a relatively small incident. "It looked like just a normal kind of mistake," Steinbruner told Business Insider. "This is the kind of thing that can happening dealing with a new technique and discovering it wasn't as effective." 
In a way, the occasional breach is almost the price of advanced scientific research into deadly pathogens. 
"It's an occupational risk," Steinbruner explained. "Even if you're working under containment conditions, those conditions can break down. They don't always work. Mistakes will be made. These pathogens are very robust."
While this mistake didn't threaten the public, it isn't hard to imagine a much more broadly threatening incident developing from the same sort of errors.
As Steinbruner notes, the SARS virus has escaped <a href="http://academic.marion.ohio-state.edu/sciencefair/BSL.htm">Biosafety Level 3</a> containment three times. Experiments with potentially human-to-human transmissible versions of the H5 N1 "bird flu" virus were <a href="http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/bird-flu-experiments-pose-risk-of-accidental-release/">performed</a> under Biosafety Level 3 containment in Wisconsin and the Netherlands. Steinbruner considers this to be inadequately secure. He says the bird flu experiments should have taken place at <a href="http://academic.marion.ohio-state.edu/sciencefair/BSL.htm">Biosafety Level 4</a>, given the deadliness of the virus and the dangers to the general public.
In Steinbruner's mind, there isn't enough centralized oversight of that kind of research. "Anybody active in that territory ought to be subjected to informed oversight forcing them to justify what they're doing," Steinbruner says. "That mechanism is not in place." 
The incident at CDC shouldn't be cause for broader panic. It's still a reminder that mistakes can happen even in the most professional and secure lab environment in the country - and, by implication, just about any other lab in the world.

Here's How Dozens Of Scientists At One Of America's Top Labs Were Exposed To Anthrax

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div> REUTERS/Carlos Barria </div>A deadly outbreak of <keyword id="95867" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Bird-flu">bird flu</keyword> is testing <keyword id="1334" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="China">China</keyword>'s political leaders, as well as its response to health emergencies
"WE REALLY only have sporadic cases of a rare disease, and perhaps it will remain that way." The soothing words of the World Health Organisation's representative in Beijing, Michael O'Leary, on April 8th are still the prevailing view of H7N9, a new bird-flu virus that has killed at least nine people in China since March.
But even if it does not develop into a pandemic, the outbreak is putting China's new leaders under the spotlight. The coincidence of H7N9's emergence with the tenth anniversary of a China-centred epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, has not been lost on Chinese commentators. Legal Weekly, a Beijing newspaper, noted: "As more details of H7N9 flu cases are revealed, the shadow of SARS a decade ago is again spreading over the hearts of our countrymen."
The government's initial cover-up of SARS facilitated its rapid spread. By the time it faded away later in 2003, the virus had killed more than 770 people, over 80% of them in China (including Hong Kong). It also caused great disruption to business, preventing many from travelling to and within China.
SARS embarrassed China's then recently appointed leaders, Hu Jintao, the president, and his prime minister, Wen Jiabao. Ten years on, their successors, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, to whom the transfer of power was completed last month, are doubtless anxious to avoid a similar start to their time in office. A pandemic, or SARS-scale epidemic that is blamed on a cover-up or bungling by officials would cause serious harm to the country's reputation abroad. It could also fuel resentment in China of the Communist Party. It would be the first widespread health emergency since the take-off of social media, which have given Chinese people unprecedented opportunities to share their grievances.
So far the government's response has appeared far swifter and more open than it was in 2003. Mr O'Leary said the WHO was "very satisfied and pleased with the level of information shared" by China. After the first two deaths were reported on March 31st (both of them in Shanghai), the authorities looked for the virus among live poultry sold in the city's markets. When they found it, they were quick to close the markets and cull thousands of birds. By the time <keyword id="425741" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="The-Economist">The Economist</keyword> went to press, 33 people had been found to have the virus (including the nine who died). All of these cases were in Shanghai or in surrounding provinces, where the authorities have also been culling birds and stopping sales of live ones.
The public's response, however, suggests the government still has some way to go before ordinary people trust it to respond effectively. Even though no cases of the virus's transmission between humans have been reported, many people in Shanghai and the affected regions nearby are jittery. Pharmacies have been emptied of their stocks of a traditional flu medicine called ban lan gen, despite its dubious worth in dealing with H7N9. Sales of chicken in all forms have plummeted. McDonald's in Shanghai has responded by cutting the price of its Chicken McNuggets.
The bird-flu scare has hit the city at a bad time, with many citizens still distrustful of the authorities after the dumping in March of 16,000 dead pigs into tributaries of the Huangpu river. The government has still not said what killed the pigs, although it says it has found no trace of H7N9 in those tested for the virus. That the second H7N9 fatality was a pork butcher has done little to reassure the public.
Even in the official media, questions have been asked about why 27 days elapsed between the first death from H7N9 and its public announcement. The authorities say it took that long to confirm the cause, because the virus had never before been identified in humans. They have not explained, however, why on March 7th, three days after the first death, health officials in Shanghai denied rumours in social media that people had died of bird flu in a local hospital. One man was later proved to have died there of bird flu, along with one of his sons who was not found to have the virus. Despite official denials, suspicions remain that this could have been human-to-human transmission.
<h3>Time to come clean</h3>
Since SARS, the central government has stepped up efforts to prevent local authorities from trying to conceal outbreaks of infectious diseases (before 2003 local officials commonly did so in order to protect their economies from the impact of culling or quarantine). In 2007 it ended a ban on unauthorised media coverage of public emergencies. In 2008 it introduced a law requiring local governments to release non-secret information to citizens who request it. But a culture of secrecy still pervades the handling of crises. A search of Chinese government websites reveals several local regulations that stress the importance of reporting outbreaks of disease to higher levels, as well as the need to uphold secrecy. Rules published by a township in the north-eastern province of Jilin last July ban the release of any information about bird-flu cases without authorisation from the local government's bird-flu prevention office.
Ever fearful of the growing power of social media, police have been rounding up people they say have used such tools to spread rumours about H7N9. Caijing, a Beijing magazine, said that at least 13 people had been jailed so far.
Click <a href="http://www.economist.com/products/subscribe/CUR22/noreg">here</a> to subscribe to The Economist

The New Bird Flu In China Is Creating A SARS-Like Scare

<div class="KonaFilter image-container click-to-enlarge"><div class="image"><a title_source="REUTERS/Tyrone Siu" title_caption="Health officers in full protective gear wait to cross a road near a wholesale poultry market in Hong Kong January 28, 2014. Hong Kong began culling 20,000 chickens and suspended imports of fresh poultry from mainland China for 21 days on Tuesday after the discovery of the H7N9 bird flu virus in a batch of live chicken from the southern province of Guangdong." class="zoomin" href="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/52e8ea2f6bb3f7b87033b5db-960/chinese-health-workers.jpg"></a>REUTERS/Tyrone SiuHealth officers in full protective gear wait to cross a road near a wholesale poultry market in Hong Kong January 28, 2014. Hong Kong began culling 20,000 chickens and suspended imports of fresh poultry from mainland China for 21 days on Tuesday after the discovery of the H7N9 bird flu virus in a batch of live chicken from the southern province of Guangdong.</div></div>
Good morning. Here's what you need to know.
- At an emergency midnight meeting, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cbrt-decision-2014-1">announced massive rate hikes</a> to shore up the Turkish lira, which has been plummeting to successive all-time lows against the U.S. dollar in recent weeks amid a government corruption scandal and deteriorating economic fundamentals. The central bank's benchmark overnight lending rate was raised to 12% from 7.75%, while the repo rate was raised to 10% from 4.5% and the overnight borrowing rate was hiked to 8% from 3.5%. The lira surged on the news but has already given back most of its gains early in Wednesday trading.
- The Federal Open Market Committee announces its final policy decision under the leadership of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke at 2 PM ET. The widespread consensus is that the FOMC will move forward with another $10 billion reduction to its monthly bond-buying program, but the bigger question is how it might seek to modify the language in its policy statement to strengthen its forward guidance on the likely path of short-term interest rates.
- Ahead of the FOMC announcement, gold is up and the dollar is down against the euro and the yen. S&amp;P 500 futures have been falling all morning and now point to a negative open. Treasuries are poised to open slightly lower as well. Markets in Asia rallied overnight - the Japanese Nikkei 225 advanced 2.7%, the Hong Kong Hang Seng rose 0.8%, and the Shanghai Composite gained 0.6%. European markets are rallying, led by Spain's IBEX 35.
- Shares of Yahoo! Inc. are down more than 3% in pre-market trading following the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-q4-earnings-2014-1">release of earnings results</a> for the quarter ended December 31. Earnings per share were $0.46, better than the consensus estimate of $0.38, but display ad revenue fell 9% year over year to $1.9 billion, prompting concerns over the company's core business.
- President Obama delivered his annual State of the Union address last night. "There were not any big policy surprises or announcements on energy/environment policy, housing, student loans, or healthcare," says Chris Krueger, a policy analyst for Guggenheim Partners in Washington, D.C. "'Opportunity for All' was relatively light on partisanship that covered many similar themes heard in previous States of the Union (tax reform, energy independence, gun control, patent reform, etc.) that are perennial topics in D.C. each year." 
- At 11:30 AM, the U.S. Treasury will auction $15 billion of 2-year floating-rate notes, marking its first new product offering in years. "Auction statistics may be hard to interpret without any historical bid/cover or indirect bids as comparison, but we expect decent participation from dealers as well as customers," say Nomura interest rate strategists. "However, we will not be surprised to see a bit of concession as dealers look to build up inventory only at attractive levels, while some customers take a wait-and-see approach at this inaugural FRN auction. Looking past the clearing level at 11:30 AM, we expect buyers of various investor classes to provide strong support for new FRN, especially on any yield spread cheapening."
- The Reserve Bank of New Zealand will announce its latest decision on monetary policy at 3 PM ET. Economists predict the central bank will leave its official cash rate unchanged at 2.50%. "Dovish lean on the meeting is increasingly strong," says Todd Elmer, a currency strategist at Citi. "We believe this gives rise to risk for New Zealand dollar strengthening beyond expectations on even a modest hawkish surprise and we believe this argues for maintaining long exposure."
- Market research company GfK's German consumer confidence indicator rose to 8.2 from last month's 7.6 reading, marking a larger-than-expected gain. "Germans consider the domestic economy to be clearly on the upturn at present," said GfK <a href="http://www.gfk.com/Documents/Press-Releases/2014/20140129_GfK-Consumer-Climate-January-2014_efin.pdf">in a statement</a>. "This is reflected in the fifth consecutive improvement in economic expectations. In the wake of this, income prospects climbed to reach a 13-year high. Willingness to buy also improved and surpassed its seven-year high of the previous month. The considerable increase in the consumer climate is further boosted by a recent slump in propensity to save."
- U.K. house prices rose 0.7% in January from a month earlier, slowing from December's 1.4% month-on-month pace of growth but surpassing the consensus estimate, which called for a 0.6% advance. The year-over-year pace of house price appreciation increased to 8.8% in January from 8.4% in December.
- South Korea's current account surplus <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cc723f32-8891-11e3-85a2-00144feab7de.html">rose to a record $70.73 billion</a> in 2013. Meanwhile, the global economic "canary in the coal mine" also saw industrial output expand 3.4% from the previous month in December, marking the strongest gain since June 2009.
MARKET COMMENTARY
"Today's main event is the U.S. FOMC meeting, after London goes home. The Fed will probably deliver a further $10 billion in 'tapering' - cutting Treasury and MBS purchases by $5 billion each. That would surprise no one, but from India to the U.S., we are now in a global monetary policy tightening cycle, and that is likely to resurrect the bear market in Treasuries. 10-year yields, having fallen to 2.7% amid the EM weakness, will head back toward 3% in the days ahead. How fast they rise will determine how long the improvement in risk sentiment lasts, but within G-10, rising U.S. yields at a time of economic outperformance leave us wanting to be long USD.
"As for the wider picture, the turn in the Fed cycle is causing volatility in markets over-reliant for too long on super-easy Fed policy. The slow, uneven process by which a new equilibrium is reached with investors differentiating between 'carry' and genuine investment opportunities, is going to drag on for much of the year. Volatility will return."
-Kit Juckes, a global strategist at Société Générale

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