The most recent outbreak of avian flu, the strain H7N9, has killed 22 people and infected 108. The cases were thought to be contained within China until Wednesday, when a Taiwanese man was confirmed to be infected with the virus.

As more cases appear, the death toll rises and so does the fear. But are the fears founded?

GlobalPost talked to Dr. Neil Fishman, associate chief medical officer at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, about where to focus efforts to quell the outbreak, how the press is handling the news and just how likely it is that humans will one day transfer the virus to other humans.

How scared should we be of H7N9?

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

NEED TO KNOW

High-rise topples in Bangladesh. At least 70 people are dead and hundreds injured after an eight-storey building collapsed in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka. Many more are feared trapped, and emergency services, joined by frantic friends and family, are leading a massive hunt for survivors.

Witnesses said that the building, which housed a garment factory, several stores and a bank, was reduced to rubble “within minutes.” According to local media, cracks had begun appearing in it a full day earlier, but apparently workers were still expected to return. It’s unfortunately only the latest in Bangladesh’s long series of workplace tragedies. 

What’s going on in Xinjiang province? Twenty-one people are reported killed in China’s restive northwest corner, after a gun battle that authorities put down to a “terrorist” gang.

Chinese state media says the firefight broke out after police attempted to search gang members’ homes. Fifteen officials and six so-called terrorists were killed, most of them members of the Uighur ethnic group that has long complained of repression at Beijing’s hands. The government frequently accuses Uighurs of violent acts of sedition; Uighurs say authorities are exaggerating the danger to justify maintaining their iron grip.

WANT TO KNOW

Do Boston’s answers lie in Dagestan? US diplomats have travelled to the mountainous republic in Russia’s North Caucasus region to interview the family of Boston bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, where they hope they’ll find clues – any clues – as to what motivated the attack.

They’ll be following in the footsteps of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who spent most of the first half of 2012 visiting relatives in Dagestan. What did he do there? Who did he meet? Can it begin to explain what he’s accused of going on to do? Investigators, like the rest of us, are stillstruggling to make it make sense.

Not LOLing now. Police in Australia have arrested the self-proclaimed leader of hacker collective LulzSec, the cyber trouble-makers behind attacks on Sony Pictures, News International and the CIA.

The 24-year-old man, identified only by his alias “ozshock,” is accused of hijacking a government website earlier this month, with the help of sensitive data gleaned from his day-job at an IT company. Police say he presented “a considerable risk to Australian society.” Not bad for a nerd.

Silvio Berlusconi is on a roll. You might think that economic disaster, sex scandals and political deadlock would be enough to keep a good man down. But this is no good man: this is Il Cavaliere.

Inconclusive elections in February followed by a failed attempt to elect a new president last weekend have left Berlusconi’s opponents looking chaotic, and the former prime minister and his allies looking calm, collected and cohesive – and in prime position to impose their will on the new government. GlobalPost studies how Berlusconi just keeps on bouncing back.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

We humans are a soppy lot. Researchers have found that people have empathy for robots, whether they be Terminator-, ‘droid- or dinosaur-shaped. (They discovered this, apparently, by making participants watch videos of a dino-bot being abused. Aww.)

The study’s authors hope their findings could one day help the development of robot companions for lonely or old people. And, y’know, help cyborg overlords take over the world. Because while we’re weeping over busted circuit boards, they definitely won’t be feeling a thing for us.

HONG KONG — In a striking sign of souring attitudes in Hong Kong toward mainland China, activists have called to reject plans to send $13 million in aid to earthquake-stricken Sichuan province due to concerns the money would be siphoned off by corrupt officials.

Chief Executive CY Leung announced the proposed donation on Monday, saying it accorded with “the love and care we have for our countrymen, and the mutual support we share.”

A former British colony, Hong Kong retains a distinct legal, political and economic system from China, though sovereignty was returned to the mainland in 1997.

This set off a heated debate in Hong Kong, with many residents arguing that any funds sent over the border would simply end up lining the coffers of corrupt officials.

Fearing corruption, Hong Kongers reject sending aid to China quake victims

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

HONG KONG — China’s economy delivered a surprise this week, posting a first-quarter GDP growth rate of  7.7 percent year over year. That’s lower than economists were expecting, and it underscores the fragility of China’s economic recovery from the doldrums of 2012. 

While many analysts point to weak industrial production as a cause of the slowdown, some observers have an intriguing theory about what may be exacerbating China’s economic woe: the anti-corruption campaigns of President Xi Jinping.

Are anti-corruption campaigns causing China’s economy to slow?

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

NEED TO KNOW

Crossing the finish line, into terror. Investigators are hunting for clues as to what – and who – caused the two explosions at the Boston Marathon yesterday that left three people dead and at least 140 injured.

While President Barack Obama was careful not to call the blasts an act of terrorism, the FBI has taken over the investigation as a “potential terrorist inquiry.” Early this morning officers searched an apartment in a northern Boston suburb, where they were seen removing several bags and other items for closer examination.

We’ll know more when the FBI gives a press conference later this morning. We already have enough details to sense the scale of the horror: the limbs lost. The Newtown parents watching another tragedy unfold. The 8-year-old boy killed just after he’d watched his dad complete the race. No one has yet claimed responsibility for these things, but when they do, Obama promised, they will feel “the full weight of justice.”

WANT TO KNOW

Another Iranian earthquake. Seismologists are reporting a 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Iran, less than a week after the 6.3-magnitude quake that killed 37 people and injured more than 850 near the southwest city of Bushehr.

Today’s tremor occurred near the border with Pakistan and was felt all over the Middle East, even as far away as the Indian capital, Delhi. The damage, when it’s counted, is expected to be great.

Chopper down near North Korea. A US Marine helicopter has crashed near South Korea’s border with the North, for reasons that remain unclear. The cargo aircraft was taking part in joint military drills with South Korean forces when it made what US officials described as a “hard landing” around 55 miles north of Seoul.

All 21 people on board survived, though five remain in hospital. The military says it’s investigating and will release more information when it has it. Meanwhile the joint exercises – the same that have drawn so much of North Korea’s ire – as far as we know, continue.

Like we say, things are less than pacific in the Pacific. And China says all these war games are only making things worse. In a white paper published today, the Chinese Defense Ministry claims that efforts by “some countries” to boost their military presence in the Asia Pacific is obstructing regional peace and stability. Psst: they’re talking about you, America.

The so-called “pivot to Asia,” which has seen the US send in extra troops, ships and planes to show how it looks after its allies, has “frequently made the situation tenser,” according to China. Beijing has long suspected that the US policy was not about friendship, but keeping the growing Chinese military in check. China’s forces, naturally, would “never seek hegemony,” the Defense Ministry said; though they will defend China’s sovereignty and territory “resolutely.”

STRANGE BUT TRUE

You (don’t) autocomplete me. A court in Japan has ordered Google to switch off its autocomplete function after a man successfully ordered that the search engine’s automatically generated suggestions were harming his chances of getting a job. Why? Because he happens to share his name with a criminal, whose less than illustrious resumé comes up even before you’ve hit “Search.”

Google maintains that it’s not invasion of privacy if the thing doing the invading is a non-thinking searchbot, and has ignored previous court orders to de-link the defamatory terms. As for this latest request, the gatekeeper to the internet says it’s “studying the ruling.”

NEED TO KNOW

And that bomb makes two. North Korea has moved a second mid-range missile to its eastern seaboard, according to South Korean officials, who say that both have been loaded onto mobile launchpads ready to be fired “without prior warning.” In response, South Korea has deployed missile-intercepting warships on either side of the peninsula.

We’ll be tracking the latest anxious-making developments here. In the meantime, read what the experts tell GlobalPost about the US’s role in all this and whether there’s reason to hope something good will come of it (short answer: not much). Or you could just relive the whole thing in memes – because memes make everything better, even potential war. Phew.

WANT TO KNOW

Avian angst in Shanghai. China’s biggest city has closed its sprawling poultry marketsdue to the outbreak of H7N9 bird flu. Authorities say the temporary measure is for the sake of “public safety.”

At least six people have now died after contracting the H7N9 virus, a strain never before seen in humans. Doctors aren’t yet sure how the infection is spreading, but as a precaution, the markets are closed, hospitals are on high alert, and birds are being culled by the thousand.

High-rise disaster in India. More than 30 bodies have been recovered from the rubble of a seven-storey building that collapsed last night on the outskirts of Mumbai. Scores of people are still feared trapped after the high-rise toppled over them “like a pack of cards.”

The block, which was still under construction, was being built illegally, without authorities’ permission. Police say shoddy building materials probably caused the collapse, whose victims were mainly construction workers and their families living on site. The lead builders face charges of negligence.

A jibe too far? Egypt’s judiciary created an international firestorm this week when the top judge called the country’s foremost political satirist in for questioning. Bassem Youssef is accused of using his weekly satirical news show to “insult the president” and “insult Islam”; his supporters call it an unprecedented attack on freedom of speech.

Egypt is well known for taking a humorous approach to its ills, but Youssef has pioneered a new, blunt style that may have proved too much for the country’s fledgling rulers. GlobalPost asks: How funny is too funny in the new Egypt?

Farewell, Roger Ebert, who died yesterday aged 70. He had cancer.

Tributes to the veteran US movie critic have been paid from Hollywood and beyond. Steven Spielberg called it “the end of an era,” while President Barack Obama said Ebert “was the movies.” RIP to the man whose reviews were often better than the movies themselves.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Everybody must get stoned, even if you have to raid a pensioner’s lawn to do it. The gardens of Germany are being pillaged by teenagers in quest of the most fragant of natural highs: hydrangeas. The pastel blooms so beloved of front-yard horticulturalists can, it turns out, have an intoxicating effect when smoked – a property that’s led to them being pilfered by the bunch from homes across sleepy southern Germany.

Medical experts warn that the flowery joints, if smoked to excess, can lead to poisoning, brain damage and even death. You hear that, kids? Don’t get high-drangeaed.

North Korean threats to launch a nuclear attack on the United States have left its closest ally, Beijing, in a difficult position.

Under a treaty signed half a century ago, China is obliged to “render military and other assistance by all means at its disposal” in the event North Korea comes under “armed attack by any state.”

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, China has been ambivalent about its commitment to the Sino-North Korean Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance.

But as tensions on the Korean peninsula escalate, China is likely to come under increasing pressure to state its position.

Would China honor its commitment to defend North Korea?

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

NEED TO KNOW

North Korea hits the switch. No, not that switch – yet. The country has announced that it will restart its dormant nuclear reactor, in order to fuel its atomic weapons program.

The reactor at Yongbyon – North Korea’s one source of plutonium – has lain unused since July 2007, when Pyongyang agreed to close it in exchange for foreign aid. The announcement that it will power it up once more is the clearest signal yet that North Korea is ready to ignore international sanctions and throw six years of diplomacy to the wind.

Powerless in Pakistan. Heavily armed gunmen have attacked a major power plant in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least seven people, abducting five others, and cutting off electricity to 100,000.

Power has since been restored, but the 50-odd attackers and their hostages are gone. No group has yet claimed responsibility; the area, though, is a frequent target for the Taliban.

WANT TO KNOW

Accident or arson? In Myanmar, 13 children are dead after a fire at their school in Yangon. They were teenage boys, asleep in the dormitory of their Islamic boarding college.

Authorities say faulty electrics started the blaze. But the fact that the victims were Muslims, in a fortnight when more than 40 people have been killed, scores of mosques burned and homes destroyed in anti-Muslim violence, has prompted speculation that the fire was no accident.

Crowds have gathered outside the school to demand answers, while the government appeals for calm. In the words of one Muslim leader: “The whole country is worried now for Yangon.”

What’s “sorry” in Mandarin? Apple could tell you: the tech giant has formally apologized to Chinese customers for its perceived “arrogance.”

The company has taken a hammering in China’s state media of late, which accused it of corporate malpractice, greed, and “Westerners’ traditional sense of superiority” toward the Chinese (even if consumers themselves didn’t necessarily agree). In a statement issued this morning, Apple said it had failed to communicate properly and that there were “many things we have to learn.” Humble enough for you, Beijing?

Fight for your country, fight for your sex. The Israeli Defense Forces are the only military in the world that drafts women into regular service. And yet, though 92 percent of positions in the armed services are open to women, only 5 percent of female soldiers serve in combat roles.

Some women are determined to change that. GlobalPost meets the elite female soldiers blazing a trail in Israel’s armed forces.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Ah, April 2. The day you look back and realise you were had. (Whaddya mean, I can’t Google a smell?) In case you missed it, here’s the GlobalPost round-up of this year’s finest April Fools’ pranks.

We won’t go into which ones we fell for. Suffice it to say, the vowels are back in our tweets and we’re no longer sniffing the computers.

HONG KONG, China — Nearly a decade after Chinese environmentalists achieved one of their greatest successes by stalling plans to build 13 dams on the Nujiang, one of China’s two remaining free-flowing rivers, the “angry river” is under threat again.

Earlier this year, the government announced it would help power the country’s densely populated, industry-heavy eastern seaboard by re-instating a project to build five new mega-dams along the Nujiang and several other waterways in China’s biologically rich southwest.

Flowing nearly 1,800 miles from the Tibetan plateau through southwestern Yunnan Province into Thailand and Myanmar — where it’s known as the Salween — the Nujiang supports an estimated 25 percent of China’s plant and animal species, many of which are found nowhere else in the world.

Environmentalists struggle to stop Chinese dam project

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

NEED TO KNOW

Seoul gets snappy. South Korean President Park Geun-hye has promised “strong” retaliation to provocation from North Korea, her toughest retort yet to weeks of increasingly bellicose talk.

Park says there should be “a strong and immediate retaliation without any other political considerations if [the North] stages any provocation against our people.” Let’s hope it doesn’t.

Tanker bomb in Tikrit. At least seven people are dead after a suicide bomber blew up a tanker truck outside the north-central Iraqi city’s police headquarters. A dozen more were wounded, most of them police.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes three weeks before provincial elections are due.

WANT TO KNOW

Read all about it, for the first time in almost 50 years. Privately owned daily newspapers returned today to Myanmar’s news stands, where they haven’t been seen since 1964. When the junta took power that year, it shut down most dailies and turned others into mouthpieces; but, as Myanmar emerges from military rule, its changing government has granted publishing licences to private media companies for the first time in decades.

It’s a milestone for Myanmar’s press – but that’s not to say the struggle’s over. The government is currently consulting on a draft media law that journalists fear would restore many of the controls they have spent decades struggling against.

China’s “angry river” has good reason to be angry. The Nujiang, one of China’s two remaining free-flowing rivers, is under threat – again. Nearly a decade after environmentalists succeeded in stalling plans to build 13 dams, the government has reinstated a project to erect five new mega-dams along the Nujiang and other waterways in China’s biologically rich southwest.

GlobalPost meets the campaigners struggling to stop one of their largest achievements being undone.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Fleas freeze. Who knew the little critters were so fragile? And yet the entire cast of a Bavarian traveling flea circus was wiped out by an unseasonable cold snap currently gripping Germany. No, seriously.

All 300 insect performers perished as they were transported to an open-air fair in the western town of Mechernich-Kommern. The show must go on, however, and 50 fleas were drummed up at short notice by a local insectologist to take their place in the ring. (Though the ringmaster reports that the understudies lack a certain je ne sais quoi.) Let’s hope he invests in some – wait for it – antifleeze.