BRUSSELS: Britain scolded its NATO allies Wednesday for not stepping forward to share combat duties in Afghanistan, warning that there could be no freeloaders in the fight against Taliban-led insurgents."An alliance worth its name must be one that shares the burden of membership equally amongst its members, because there can be no freeloading when it comes to collective security," British Defence Secretary John Hutton said."Volunteering, not waiting to be asked, must be the hallmark of a proper relationship between the transatlantic members of this alliance," he told ambassadors at North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) headquarters in Brussels.NATO is embarked on its biggest and most-ambitious operation ever trying to spread the influence of the weak Afghan government across the strife-torn country and help foster reconstruction. But the Taliban and its cohorts, including al-Qaeda, drug lords and criminal gangs, have been waging an increasingly tenacious insurgency and seriously undermining NATO's goals.
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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