Saturday, December 12, 2009 WASHINGTON: The US Central Intelligence Agency has cancelled a contract with a security company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide that allowed the company to load bombs on CIA drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan, The New York Times reported late Friday. Citing intelligence officials, the newspaper said the contract gave Blackwater employees an operational role in one of the CIA's most significant covert programs, which has killed dozens of militants with Predator and Reaper drones. The contract with the company, now called Xe Services, was canceled this year by CIA Director Leon Panetta, the report said. CIA spokesman George Little said Panetta had ordered that the agency's employees take over the jobs from Xe employees at the remote drone bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the paper noted.Panetta had also ordered a review of all contracts with the company, according to the report.
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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