Friday, August 07, 2009 KANDAHAR: Afghan violence left 17 people dead including wedding-goers and five US soldiers in new attacks ahead of elections as the NATO chief Thursday visited insurgent hotspots in the south. A wave of insurgent attacks in Afghanistan has raised fears that violence will mar presidential and provincial council elections on August 20 and damage the credibility of the polls. A bomb ripped through a trailer taking villagers to a wedding and towed by a farm tractor -- a common mode of transport in rural Afghanistan -- in the southern province of Helmand on Wednesday, authorities said. Several officials initially said 21 people were killed, including children and women, and five others wounded. But by evening provincial police chief Assadullah Shairzad had dropped the death toll to five, saying the first information was incorrect.
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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