PM to chair Cobra meeting

The UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is returning to London to chair a special meeting of the COBRA team after a reported outbreak of foot and mouth disease.

The PM spoke with the Cobra team, the Government's high level civil emergencies committee, from his holiday retreat in Dorset last night.

Later this morning he will chair a second meeting aimed at ensuring a coordinated response to the foot and mouth infection discovered on a farm in Surrey yesterday.

A three kilometre exclusion zone has been established around the premises in the village of Wanborough, near Guildford, and around 60 animals are expected to be culled.

A 10 kilometre zone around the farm will be closely monitored for signs of any further infection and a nationwide ban has been placed on the movement of pigs and other livestock.

ENDS