Tuesday, September 22, 2009 TEHRAN: Iran on Monday welcomed the US move to abandon plans for a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe and denied that the Islamic republic posed a missile threat, Geo News reported."The Islamic republic welcomes any action that serves to decrease arms races," it quoted foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi as saying.US President Barack Obama last week announced he would shelve plans to site parts of a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, and instead deploy more mobile equipment targeting Iran's short- and medium-range missiles.Ghashghavi called baseless and unsubstantiated the idea that the missile plan had been to counter a military threat from Iran."The claim that Iran is a missile threat was made by the United States with political, opportunist and domineering intentions," he said.Ghashghavi put the original shield plan down to "missile competition between Russia and the United States, and in order to expand the big power's penetration into central European countries."On Sunday Obama denied that Russian objections had influenced his decision to abandon the shield plans launched by his predecessor's administration.
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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