COLOMBO: Heavy fighting in Sri Lanka's north has left at least 28 separatist Tamil Tigers dead, close to the last rebel-held town, the military said Saturday.They were killed near Puthkkudiyirippu, where fierce battles between government troops and the rebels have been raging for several weeks, said military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara. ``There were a total of 28 LTTE fighters killed, and there are confrontations still taking place,'' he said, referring to the rebels' formal name, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.The military does not give casualty figures for its troops. Independent accounts of the fighting are not possible because access to the war zone is restricted. The army has ousted the Tamil rebels from all but one of their strongholds in an all-out offensive the government hopes will soon end the island's 25-year-old civil war. The rebel holdouts _ along with tens of thousands of terrified civilians _ are confined to about 11 square miles (28 square kilometers) of jungle and beach on the northeastern coast.
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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