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Maoist rebels in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal have attacked police camps and demolished the house of a local communist leader.

The bodies of four workers of the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) were recovered in the restive jungle region of Lalgarh.

A further four are missing. Police say they may have been killed or kidnapped.

Rebels have taken almost total control of Lalgargh in West Midnapore district since last November, reports say.

About 6,000 people have been killed in violence linked to Maoist rebels in India over the past 20 years.

They are active in states across east and central India - the so-called "red corridor". Last week more than 20 police were killed in the eastern state of Jharkand.

Police 'non-existent'

In the latest incident, rebels ransacked and torched at least three police camps after entering the Dharampur area of Lalgarh on Monday.

They also destroyed the house of a local communist leader who managed to flee his home, reports said.

The rebels have also made their presence felt in around 170 villages in Lalgarh, threatening supporters of the state's ruling communist party and warning them to leave the area, reports said.

The district has experienced unrest for a number of months.

Tribal people in Lalgarh launched violent protests and strikes against the police in the area last November.

The protests came shortly after former federal minister Ram Bilas Paswan narrowly escaped a landmine explosion set off by suspected Maoist rebels.

The BBC's Amitabha Bhattasali says that Lalgarh has remained under almost total control of the Maoists ever since then, with the police and administration virtually non-existent there.

At that time a serving police officer in West Bengal caused controversy by refusing to command a camp in district. He is reported to have told colleagues he would rather resign than risk his life.

Analysts say that Maoists operate in 182 districts in India, including some in West Bengal.

The rebels say they represent the rights of landless farmhands and tribal communities. They have attacked police outposts and enforced strikes in India's mineral heartland.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called the Maoist movement the "biggest threat to India's national security".

Bird flu may not have become the threat to humans that some predicted because our noses are too cold for the virus to thrive, say UK researchers.

Tests in a laboratory recreation of the environment in the nose found that at 32 degrees Celsius, avian flu viruses lose function and cannot spread.

It is likely that the viruses have adapted to suit the warmer 40 degree environments in the guts of birds.

A mutation would be needed before bird flu became a human problem, they said.

Published in the journal PLoS Pathogens, the study also found that human viruses are affected by the colder temperatures found in the nose but to nowhere near the same extent.

"It is certainly part of the explanation of why avian viruses, such as H5N1, fail to transmit readily to humans"
Professor Ian Jones, University of Reading

In effect, human viruses are still able to replicate and spread under those conditions, the Imperial College London researchers said.

Both viruses were able to grow well at 37 degrees - human core body temperature and equivalent to the environment in the lungs.

They also created a mutated human flu virus by adding a protein from the surface of an avian influenza virus.

This virus - an example of how a new strain could develop and start a pandemic - was also unsuccessful at 32 degrees.

Mutations

Study leader Professor Wendy Barclay said it suggested that if a new human influenza strain evolved by mixing with an avian influenza virus, it would still need to undergo further mutations before it could be successful in infecting humans.

"Our study gives vital clues about what kinds of changes would be needed in order for them to mutate and infect humans, potentially helping us to identify which viruses could lead to a pandemic."

She added further research could point to warning signs in viruses that are beginning to make the kinds of genetic changes for them to jump into humans.

"Animal viruses that spread well at low temperatures in these cultures could be more likely to cause the next pandemic than those which are restricted."

She said swine flu - which was spreading from person to person, seemingly through upper respiratory tract infection - was probably an example of a virus which had adapted to cope with the cooler temperatures in the nose.

Key protein role

Professor Ian Jones, an expert in virology at the University of Reading, said: "This work confirms the fact that temperature differences in the avian and human sites of influenza infection are key to virus establishment.

"It is certainly part of the explanation of why avian viruses, such as H5N1, fail to transmit readily to humans."

He added that the research also showed that the proteins on the outside of the virus were key to its function at different temperatures.

"This helps the monitoring of avian flu as it indicates which changes to look out for."

One man has been shot dead and another wounded when Irish police intercepted an armed gang in County Dublin.

Another four men were arrested by Garda and are being detained under the Republic's Offences Against the State Act.

Officers from the Organised Crime Unit were involved in the incident at Foxborough Road, Lucan, on Friday.

A Garda spokesperson said shots were fired and two men were injured. One man died afterwards in hospital.

The Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission has been notified of the incident.