WASHINGTON: After banning and then publicizing the most controversial interrogation practices employed by the CIA, President Obama called on the agency Monday to live up to its mission under its new marching orders."We live in dangerous times," Obama said at the CIA headquarters in Virginia. "I am going to need you more than ever."Obama last week released legal memos written by the Bush-era Justice Department that gave the CIA authority to use harsh interrogation tactics on Al Qaeda suspects -- including waterboarding, in which drowning is simulated. The release of the memos has drawn criticism from some current and former intelligence officials and Bush administration officials. However, Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. has called waterboarding "torture." Along with other methods, it is forbidden under orders Obama signed in his first week in office. "I have put an end to the interrogation techniques described in those memos," Obama told CIA employees. "I believe that our nation is stronger and more secure when we deploy the full measure of both our power and the power of our values -- including the rule of law."CIA Director Leon E. Panetta drove the same message home: "We can fully protect our nation and our values at the same time," he said Monday.The White House sought to show it is leaving the past behind by announcing that no CIA agents would be prosecuted for interrogations sanctioned under the Bush administration. Obama's advisors also have suggested that the highest-level officials who authorized the practices will be immune.
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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