TAIPEI (Reuters) - A 53-year-old Taiwan businessman has contracted the H7N9 strain of bird flu while travelling in China, Taiwan's Health Department said on Wednesday, the first reported case outside of mainland China. The man was hospitalised after becoming ill three days after returning from Suzhou on April 9, Health Department Minister Wen-Ta Chiu told a news conference. Chiu said the patient was diagnosed with the H7N9 virus and was in serious condition.

China is planning a second and larger aircraft carrier, state media Wednesday quoted a senior naval officer as saying, after commissioning its first such ship last year. "China will have more than one aircraft carrier," said Song Xue, deputy chief of staff of China's navy, according to the official Xinhua news agency. "We hope the next aircraft carrier can be bigger, because then it would be able to carry more aircraft and be more powerful," he told foreign military attaches in Beijing at a ceremony Tuesday to celebrate the 64th anniversary of the founding of China's navy.

Taiwan has received specimens of the H7N9 avian flu virus from China to help research the new strain, in what an official described Sunday as a landmark move in health cooperation. The virus samples were taken from China's eastern Anhui province and transported to Taiwan on Saturday, according to the Taiwanese Centers for Disease Control (CDC). "The virus could be used in producing vaccines and diagnosis," Liu Shih-hao of CDC, told AFP.

Taiwan staged its biggest live-fire drill since 2008 Wednesday, in an operation involving more than 7000 troops that simulated a Chinese attack as its leader warned of Beijing's arms build-up. The operation, part of a five-day round-the-clock annual exercise codenamed "Han Kuang 29" (Han Glory 29), took place on the Penghu Islands in the middle of the 180-kilometre (110-mile) strait separating Taiwan from the Chinese mainland.