BEIJING en route to NEW YORK via LONDON – 

My flight to London was half-full – perhaps from last-minute cancellations over swine flu fears, but more likely the result of the global economic recession, which has drastically reduced tourism and business travel, or maybe it was just due to the ungodly departure hour of 7:45 a.m.

As with elsewhere, coverage of the swine flu in China has been non-stop, but the Chinese passengers on my flight shrugged off the news. 

Andy Wong / AP

Customs officers monitor passengers through a thermal detector machine at the arrival hall of Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, China on Tuesday.

An elderly woman said she wasn’t worried; besides, this was only her second visit in seven years to the U.K. to see her daughter, who lives in England’s Midlands region.

And a young woman named Xu Man, who was traveling on to Amsterdam, likewise said she was “unconcerned” about the spread of the virus.

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MEXICO CITY – Almost two weeks ago Paola Alquicira woke up, complaining to her husband of a scratchy throat. As the day progressed, the young housewife felt even worse, but went about her normal day.

She dragged herself to an exercise class, called her mom once or twice and tried to keep pace with her 2-year-old daughter. By nightfall Paola was running a fever, had muscle and joint pain, and a runny nose. Although it was tough with a small toddler, Paola, 23, opted to stay in bed the next day, hoping to shake “la gripe,” Spanish for the flu.

VIDEO: Paola Alquicira’s mother waits outside her hospital

Instead, over the next two days her fever spiked and before the week ended she was hospitalized after an X-ray showed acute pneumonia. Her husband sent his small daughter to stay with relatives outside of Mexico City so he could keep vigil at his wife’s bedside.

“She just would not get any better,” said her husband Enrique, explaining that the family was baffled by her condition.

Then last Thursday, he learned the reason why.

His government disclosed that the nation was in the grips of a dangerous epidemic, that a new strain of deadly swine flu had been detected in the country.

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GENEVA – Despite fears of swine flu turning into a full-blown pandemic, the atmosphere in the main hall of the 1970s-style headquarters of the World Health Organization in Geneva seems very business as usual.

On Tuesday morning, small groups of international health experts engaged in scientific talk over cups of coffee in the lobby’s cafeteria, while others, with briefcases or paperwork under their arms, walked across the shiny marble floor to and from adjacent elevators.

But appearances of normality aside, only a few feet away from the lobby coffee shop is WHO’s Strategic Health Operations Center – the so-called SHOC room. It is an emergency center where WHO experts have been gathering over the last several days to monitor the evolving swine flu crisis.

Fabrice Coffrini / AFP – Getty Images

Employees enter the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva on Tuesday.

“This is where we gather our scientists, our infection control experts, our epidemiologists, our logisticians,” said Dr. Margaret Chan, the Director-General of WHO, as she explained how the international organization has been monitoring the feared pandemic.

“We capture information from all the offices of WHO through our regional office. We have a daily teleconference here and we can connect to countries if necessary, so that we can, in real time, share information as quickly as possible,” said Chan. “And when dealing with new and emerging infection – action, speed and good information, good quality information is extremely important.”

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NICOSIA, Cyprus – On a small island like Cyprus, it’s comforting to see the government hastening to reassure the population that there is no need to panic about swine flu and show precautions they have already taken to deal with a possible outbreak, even though officials have yet to diagnose single case here.  

Cyprus depends on tourism and agriculture for its economic survival; a pandemic of swine flu would be disastrous for both sectors.

After the weekend news that swine flu had killed dozens of people in Mexico, and that cases had since been reported in the United States and Europe, the Cyprus Health Ministry convened an emergency meeting of microbiologists, epidemiologists and officials from pharmaceutical services to coordinate action and determine the readiness of emergency health services throughout the island.

“The fact that cases have been reported in Europe is worrying,” said Health Minister Christos Patsalides. “This obliges everyone in Europe to increase their measures to deal with swine flu.”

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ISLAMABAD – After weeks of consolidating their control over large areas of the Northwest Frontier Province, the Taliban are in retreat.

On Friday, Maulana Fazullah, the firebrand Taliban boss in the Swat Valley, ordered his most trusted military chief, Commander Fateh, to leave Buner, a neighboring valley that Fateh seized on Monday.

The Pakistani authorities warned the militants on Thursday that they were ready to remove them by force if they did not lay down their arms and abide by a peace agreement hammered out in February.

Mohammad Sajjad / AP

Taliban militants hold their weapons outside a mosque in Daggar, Buner’s main town on Thursday.

 
According to the deal, the government ceded power to the Taliban in the Swat Valley and allowed them to impose Islamic law in the area in return for a cease-fire – ending two years of on and off military operations there.

But last weekend at a large gathering of supporters in the valley, the Taliban announced they would not lay down their arms and openly challenged the state. They declared that democracy was un-Islamic and called for harsh Islamic laws, known as sharia, to replace Pakistan’s constitution.

The next day, they began their advance into Buner. That valley’s proximity to the capital, Islamabad, just 70 miles and a five-hour drive away, sounded alarm bells in Washington.
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