'We are safe' WHO boss tells flu meet, after break-in

GENEVA (Reuters) - "Basically, we are safe!" World Health Organisation Director-General Margaret Chan said on Monday, prompting laughter from delegates at a meeting of the WHO's annual assembly dominated by worries over swine flu.

But Chan was not referring to the new H1N1 influenza strain, whose potential risks she had just spelt out in an address to the World Health Assembly.

She was speaking after security officials interrupted a speech by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to warn about a protest outside the European headquarters of the United Nations meant that delegates could not use one of the complex's main exits.

A large group of Tamils spent the day protesting outside the U.N.'s Palais des Nations building at the crushing of their independence movement in Sri Lanka's 26-year-old civil war, in which the government declared total victory.

Chan explained that a number of demonstrators had managed to break into the U.N. complex but the incident was now contained. She asked Sebelius to resume her speech, to loud applause.

Earlier, the assembly was interrupted by half a dozen protesters who were ushered out of the public gallery after one of them shouted repeatedly "Taiwan is not part of China!"

Taiwan is attending the assembly for the first time as an observer, after China dropped its objections to participation by the island it regards as a renegade province.

Some Taiwanese regard the fact that Taiwan still cannot take part as a full delegation as an insult.