TOKYO: Japan closed more than 4,000 schools and kindergartens, double the previous day's number, to slow the spread of swine flu, which has infected 163 people in the country, officials said.A total of 4,043 schools and kindergartens were closed in and around both cities at the request of government authorities, up from some 2,000, an education ministry official said.Japan's number of confirmed cases has risen to 163 -- the fourth largest national figure on the world infection table -- in the central Honshu island region since the first confirmed domestic infection was reported Saturday. No fatalities have been reported in Japan.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
Comments