Tuesday, November 03, 2009 GAZA: Israel has released six members of the Palestinian parliament affiliated to the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) who were jailed after resistance fighters seized Gilad Shalit in a 2006 cross-border raid. The freed lawmakers were identified as Ahmad Attoun and Wael Al-Husseini from Jerusalem Al-Quds, Khalil Ar-Rabai, Samir Al-Qadi, and Mahir Badr from Hebron (al-Khalil), and Mahmoud Al-Khatib from Bethlehem (Beit Lahm). “The detention of Palestinian lawmakers was a crime against humanity and the international community should call Israeli occupation to account for that violation,” Gaza-based Hamas lawmaker and head of the International Campaign for the Release of Abducted Members of Parliament Mushir Al-Masri said. Al-Masri stressed that the campaign he leads will continue to lobby against the detention of members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Eighteen other Palestinian legislators are still in Israel's custody, including 15 affiliated to Hamas, two from Fatah, and one affiliated to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Israel arrested 45 Hamas lawmakers in the West Bank in the aftermath of Shalit's capture.
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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