South Korea disease outbreak

I've not seen this reported in the English press at all. You have to go to Cattle News (!) to find out that there is a massive animal disease outbreak in South Korea, and they are only reporting it because of the impact it's having on US markets.

As things stand 16% of the entire pig and cow herds have been slaughtered (2.1 million animals). Obviously the markets think this is great because it has seen a jump in the future's markets. “The movement of animals is completely paralyzed,” said Dennis Smith, a senior account executive at Archer Financial Services Inc. in Chicago. “They basically are not producing any meat for their retail counters. They’re going to have to come to other people, primarily us.”

At the same time they are suffering a bird flu outbreak. Considering how much the press used to go wild over bird flu stories the fact this is passing them by seems perverse. The bird flu immediately prompted the authorities to cull half a million birds and we will have to see if this has contained the outbreak.

The Wall Street Journal blog reports that "people involved in the months-long containing operation are reported to be suffering from psychological damage. The National Emergency Management Agency said in a statement today it started a program to support approximately 6,500 people involved, including farmers, vaccinating and culling officials, with a psychological program."

In addition to this the outbreak may have spread to North Korea and they are currently suffering their coldest winter for some time. Not good news, but it is, I think, news which has been almost entirely ignored in the British press.