Monday, November 02, 2009 SYDNEY: More than 20 people were feared dead on Monday after a boat carrying about 40 sank in rough seas far off northwest Australia during a rescue attempt by a passing merchant ship and fishing vessel. Defence chief Angus Houston said the unidentified boat capsized and then sank after the LNG Pioneer ship and Taiwanese fishing craft responded to pleas for help in a remote area off Australia's Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean. It was not confirmed whether the boat was one of dozens of people-smuggling vessels that have headed to Australia this year carrying more than 1,700 asylum-seekers, many of them from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. "I understand when the first ship got there, this vessel was still intact," Houston said. "Somehow or other during the process of interaction between the ship and trawler and also the stricken vessel, there's been a capsize and people ended up in the water."Some 17 people were rescued by scrambling aboard life-rafts thrown out by the LNG Pioneer, which was sailing to Western Australia when it diverted course to help the stricken boat.
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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