BERLIN — Voters in Switzerland decided Sunday to make it easier for young “third-generation foreigners” to get Swiss citizenship, agreeing to extend to about 25,000 people under age 25 access to the fast-track process now available to foreign spouses of Swiss nationals.

A “naturalization of third-generation immigrants” measure passed in a national referendum with 60.4 percent of the vote, Swiss broadcaster SRF reported. The measure gives young people whose parents and grandparents have lived in Switzerland for years a simplified path to citizenship.

Being born in Switzerland doesn’t automatically confer citizenship in Switzerland and some other European countries. While about 25,000 people are estimated to be eligible for the new process, the referendum’s passage ultimately could be far-reaching in a country where noncitizens make up one-fourth of the population.

[naviga:h3]Bird flu fears close Chinese markets[/naviga:h3]

BEIJING — Several Chinese cities have shut down their poultry markets in the wake of a bird flu outbreak that has killed at least two dozen people this year across China.

Live poultry sales have now been suspended in Changsha, the capital of central China’s Hunan province, as well as markets across the eastern province of Zhejiang, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday, as authorities deal with dozens of new cases of H7N9 bird flu.

Nearly 300 markets and slaughterhouses were shut down in the southwestern Chinese city of Suining.