KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai renewed criticism of U.S. and NATO-led forces on Wednesday and said he was determined his government would take a stronger role in the deployment and work of foreign troops.Last month, Karzai's government presented a draft proposal to NATO with a list of measures aimed at preventing civilian casualties, including a demand that arrests of all Afghan nationals be made by Afghan security forces only and that there be "high-level" co-ordination of air strikes."Our demands are clear and they are that house searches of Afghans, arrests of Afghans and civilian casualties must cease. And they (U.S. and NATO countries) are naturally putting on pressure to make us silent and retract from this claim. This is not possible," Karzai said.Taliban attacks rose by 33 percent last year, according to NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, with casualties among foreign soldiers, Afghan forces and civilians alike, all up from 2007.The U.N. said on Tuesday the civilian death toll in 2008 had increased by 40 percent to 2,100, more than a third of them killed by Afghan and foreign forces.As violence has increased, so have the tensions between Karzai and his Western backers.Karzai, facing elections in August, has repeatedly called for an end to civilian casualties caused by foreign troops, while Western leaders constantly call for "good governance" -- implied criticism of Karzai's ability to rule effectively.
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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