Health Nations from Asia to Europe and the Americas stepped up their guard against the rapid spread of the bird flu virus after Thailand reported its first fatality from the virus in a year. UN Senior Syrian security officials most likely approved the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, the UN commission probing the assassination concluded, but Damascus dismissed their report as "politically biased". Quake The United Nations' top relief official met NATO leaders to press the military alliance to provide additional help to bolster the international efforts to aid the millions left homeless in earthquake-shattered Pakistan. US Thousands of tourists hunkered down in shelters on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, bracing for Hurricane Wilma's impact, in the hope its 240 kilometer (150 mile) per hour winds will not pick up strength before it makes landfall. NKorea North Korea is ready to return to talks on its nuclear program and would accept a visit by the UN's atomic watchdog, US politician Bill Richardson said after four days of talks in the Stalinist state. NKorea Chinese President Hu Jintao will visit North Korea next week for meetings with reclusive leader Kim Jong-Il, just weeks before the scheduled resumption of six-party talks on its nuclear program, state media said. WTO The United States and the European Union must each make further efforts to break a deadlock over agriculture subsidies in trade liberalisation talks, World Trade Organization director general Pascal Lamy said. Afghanistan The United States expressed concern about film of US soldiers burning the bodies of two suspected Taliban militants which comes as a new blow to the image of the US military. Iraq Iraqi authorities were probing the abduction of a defense lawyer in the trial of former dictator Saddam Hussein, while a kidnapped Irish journalist was safe in the hands of the British embassy. Mideast US President George W. Bush said that he was not sure that the Palestinians would have an independent state before he leaves office in January 2009.