OTTAWA: Extremist attacks across nuclear-armed Pakistan in recent years have made it "the most dangerous country in the world," Canada's Defense Minister Peter MacKay said Monday."I'm extremely concerned," MacKay told a press conference. "The instability in Pakistan in my view makes Pakistan the most dangerous country in the world."Around 12,000 to 15,000 Pakistan security forces are battling extremists in three northwest districts in what Islamabad says is a fight to eliminate militants -- branded by Washington as the greatest terror threat to the West.Extremist attacks have killed at least 1,800 people across Pakistan in less than two years and around Pakistani 2,000 soldiers have died in battles with Islamist militants since 2002.MacKay said the Taliban's recruiting and rearming in Pakistan is also harming NATO efforts to rout insurgents in neighboring Afghanistan, where Canada has deployed some 2,800 troops."As long as insurgency is allowed to foster and to incubate inside Pakistan, the problem remains very real, very difficult," he said.
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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