JERUSALEM — Israel today confirmed its first outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.

In a statement on its Web site, the Agriculture Ministry said the flu had been found in birds at two communal farms in southern Israel and at a farming community in central Israel.

Fearing the worst, Israel had gone ahead Saturday with the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of chickens and turkeys.

The H5N1 virus has killed or forced the slaughter of tens of millions of chickens and ducks across Asia since 2003, and recently spread to Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

World health officials fear H5N1 could evolve into a virus that would easily be transmitted between people, potentially triggering a global pandemic, though there is no evidence that is happening.

About 100 people have died from the disease worldwide, most after having been directly infected by sick birds.

POZAREVAC, Serbia-Montenegro — Slobodan Milosevic was laid to rest Saturday beneath a tree at the family estate in his hometown, a quiet end for a man blamed for ethnic wars that killed 250,000 people in one of the turbulent Balkans' bloodiest chapters.The late Serbian leader's burial, a week after his death while on U.N. trial charged with genocide and crimes against humanity, followed an emotional farewell in Belgrade that drew at least 80,000 Serb nationalists and another in his birthplace attended by up to 20,000 admirers.As a cold drizzle fell, his flag-draped coffin was lowered into a double grave with a place for his widow, Mirjana Markovic, who reportedly wants to join him when she dies.The grave, marked with a simple marble slab inscribed with both of their names in Cyrillic letters and the dates 1941-2006, was dug beneath a favorite linden tree where the couple first kissed as high school sweethearts.No immediate members of Milosevic's family attended.

CAIRNS, Australia — The most powerful storm to hit Australia in decades laid waste to its northeastern coast today, mowing down sugar and banana plantations and leaving possibly thousands of people homeless. But there were no reports of serious injuries, reflecting the preparedness of residents in the storm-prone region.About a dozen people were treated at regional hospitals for minor cuts and abrasions, said Jim Guthrie, a spokesman for the state of Queensland's health department. Many people had taken shelter before the storm, or hunkered down in their homes."This is far north Queensland and most people live with cyclones year in, year out. They do take precautions," he said. "We've come out of it extremely well."Cyclone Larry crashed ashore about 60 miles south of Cairns as a Category 5 storm, packing winds of up to 180 mph.Cairns is a popular jumping-off point for visits to the Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral system which runs parallel to the coast for more than 1,400 miles. Authorities said it was too early to assess possible damage to the reef, visited by nearly two million tourists each year.