BANGKOK: Thai troops launched a crackdown Monday to enforce a state of emergency in Bangkok, firing warning shots and tear gas as anti-government protesters hurled petrol bombs in clashes that left 70 injured.Columns of smoke rose over the capital Bangkok as hundreds of heavily-armed soldiers cleared a busy intersection blocked by demonstrators calling for Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to quit after just four months in office.Abhisit issued an emergency decree in and around Bangkok on Sunday to curb mass protests against his government, a day after demonstrators forced the humiliating cancellation of a major Asian summit at the Pattaya beach resort.The government said soldiers had cleared the intersection and arrested several of the red-clad protesters, who are loyal to Thaksin Shinawatra, the fugitive former premier ousted in a 2006 military coup.
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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