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Article: Ducking responsibility: Hong Kong's bird flu. (Hong Kong decides to slaughter 1.4 million hens in order to stop the spread of avian flu, which has killed four)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- January 10, 1998
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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EVERY hen in Hong Kong, some 1.4m of them, it was decided, would be slaughtered in an attempt to contain the "bird flu" that has so far killed four people and infected 12 others. Yet hens have been emerging dazed from the rubbish bags that were improvised as gas chambers, and it is said that thousands of other chickens still cluck with impunity in the New Territories. The bungled slaughter has, for the first time since Hong Kong's handover last year, thrown Tung Chee-hwa's administration off-balance. While Mr Tung has made much of the virtues of "executive-led" government, the chickens have handed to the democratic opposition, which was thrown out of the legislature at the ...