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India and Turkey have recorded their first cases of swine flu, giving further evidence that the disease is spreading.

In both countries the H1N1 virus was detected following the screening of passengers arriving at airports.

Meanwhile, health officials in Japan have identified the first domestic case of the disease in a 17-year-old student in the western port city of Kobe.

Two others are thought to be infected. None had been overseas recently.

Some 39 countries have reported 8,453 cases of the virus, a rise of nearly 1,000 in 24 hours.

At least 72 people have died of the virus, the World Health Organization says.

In the past week the number of people infected by the virus has risen sharply with the US, followed by Mexico, where the epidemic began, recording the highest number of cases.

By Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent, BBC News

Astronomers calculate there is a tiny chance that Mars or Venus could collide with Earth - though it would not happen for at least a billion years.

The result come from simulations to show how orbits of planets might evolve billions of years into the future.

But the calculated chances of such events occurring are tiny.

Writing in the journal Nature, a team led by Jacques Laskar shows there is also a chance Mercury could strike Venus and merge into a larger planet.

Professor Laskar of the Paris Observatory and his colleagues also report that Mars might experience a close encounter with Jupiter - whose massive gravity could hurl the planet out of our Solar System.

Astronomers had thought that the orbits of the planets were predictable. But 20 years ago, researchers showed that there were slight fluctuations in their paths.

Now, the team has shown how in a small proportion of cases these fluctuations can grow until after several million years, the orbits of the inner planets begin to overlap.

The researchers carried out more than 2,500 simulations. They found that in some, Mars and Venus collided with the Earth.

"It will be complete devastation," said Professor Laskar.

"The planet is coming in at 10km per second - 10 times the speed of a bullet - and of course Mars is much more massive than a bullet."

Professor Laskar's calculations also show that there is a possibility of Mercury crashing into Venus. But in that scenario, the Earth would not be significantly affected.

"If there is anyone around billions of years from now, they'd see a burst of light in the sky and the two planets would be merged," he said.

"The new planet would be a little bit bigger than Venus, and the Solar System would be a little more regular after the collision, but the Earth's orbit would not be affected."

I have started my China journey in Yanchi County. Yanchi is all about sheep. It is a major lamb producing area and home to the Tan Yang breed of sheep, whose wool is so naturally curly it looks like perfectly coiffed dreadlocks.

For the Tan Yang sheep this means an early and final visit to the halal slaughterhouse in downtown Yanchi.

There is more to lament for the Tan Yang. Here the Great Wall of China runs in a kind of jagged, sandy mound for hundreds of miles alongside the motorway.

It is a haunting sight, dotted with swallows' nests and shepherds' huts. But the ground is so barren here that the government has banned sheep grazing.

So the Tan Yang have to spend most of their days in the farmyards, eating their staple diet of cornmeal and liquorice bush.

For the people of Yanchi life is hard, but for 20 years the upside has been perpetual economic growth and incremental improvement.

"I want my kids to have a job like yours. I keep telling them - don't be like us. Don't live the hard life we've lived."

Read Paul Mason's Idle Scrawl blog

I meet Li Xiao Li as she carefully removes the skin of a Tan Yang, taking care not to get blood on her designer jeans.

"I want my kids to have a job like yours," she tells me. "I keep telling them - don't be like us. Don't live the hard life we've lived."

To send her daughter to school she spends most of her monthly income, and puts the rest aside to cover health costs.

This is the big problem in China: absent a welfare state, even poor-ish Chinese people save lots of their money, or spend it on health and education. The actual consumer economy is weak.

Escaping the propaganda

That is a problem now because the export economy has taken a massive hit - exports were 22% down in the first quarter of this year.

China has to try and rebalance its economy towards domestic demand.

Easy for economists to say, but it would mean a revolution in the life of people like Ms Li.

It is to find out if they can do this that I am on this journey, with legendary Chinese fixer and translator, Edera Liang, and driver Wang Zhi Gang.

I am trying to dodge the usual obstacles that greet foreign journalists in China - the dinners, the rice wine, the official briefings from propaganda chiefs - and just see it as it is.

Paul Mason's journey across China will be broadcast on Newsnight on Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 June 2009 at 10.30BST on BBC Two.

The Beckhams have received a High Court apology from their former nanny over her disclosure of private and confidential information about them.

Abbie Gibson has now agreed to give "permanent undertakings of confidentiality" to David and Victoria Beckham, the judge heard.

The court proceedings against Ms Gibson followed the publication of a newspaper article in April 2005.

The article had been captioned "Beckhams behind closed doors".