KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai promised on Wednesday to make changes to a new law for Shi'ite Muslims, if any part is found to violate the constitution, after provisions on women's rights caused an international uproar. Karzai said he had met the justice minister and the country's most senior religious leaders to discuss the law, which has already been passed by parliament and signed by Karzai but has not yet come into effect. The law is meant to legalise minority Shi'ite family law, which is different than that for the majority Sunni population.But it has provoked an outcry among Afghanistan's Western allies concerned about its potential impact on women's rights in the former Taliban state. U.S. President Barack Obama has called the law "abhorrent."
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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