In brief: WHO declares end of pandemic

Geneva, Switzerland – The World Health Organization acknowledged Tuesday that the swine flu pandemic is finally over, long after many national authorities started canceling vaccine orders and shutting down telephone hot lines as the disease ebbed from the headlines.

The official death toll – once predicted to be in the millions – reached 18,449 last week and WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said she agreed with experts that swine flu has “largely run its course.”

“This pandemic has turned out to be much more fortunate than what we feared a little over a year ago,” Chan said.

Moscow – Prime Minister Vladimir Putin climbed into a firefighting plane Tuesday and dumped water on two of the hundreds of wildfires sweeping through western Russia and cloaking Moscow in a suffocating smog.

Putin has been a very visible leader in the battle against the fires, which have caused billions of dollars in damage and left thousands homeless in the past two weeks. He has demanded that soldiers help overstretched firefighting brigades and has walked through smoldering villages, consoling residents and promising them new homes by fall.

But with his once sky-high approval ratings dropping – and sociologists warning that discontent could grow as the fires and a severe drought take their toll – Putin has not let up.

He took off Tuesday in a Be-200 firefighting plane and then moved into the copilot’s seat. Television footage showed him pushing a button to unleash water on blazing forest fires about 120 miles southeast of Moscow.