ROME: Italy will temporarily increase its number of troops in Afghanistan by 500 next year in the face of a "delicate operational situation" in western Herat province, the government said on Wednesday."The commitments we have made within NATO demand that our contingent in Afghanistan reach the figure of 2,800 for six months in 2009," Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa told the Senate defence and foreign affairs committees.La Russa said the increase would respect the ceiling of 2,600 set by parliament for the deployment because it refers to an average over a 12-month period. The defence minister was speaking the day after meeting with visiting US General David Petraeus, commander of US forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, who said he favoured a US troop surge in Afghanistan.Petraeus said he had "already made recommendations" for an almost doubling of the US force based on requests from General David McKiernan, the top commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan.NATO currently has some 50,000 troops in Afghanistan spread across the country with many of the Italians based in Herat which border Iran.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...
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