CARACAS: Sixteen Venezuelan soldiers and a civilian were killed when a military helicopter crashed Sunday near the Colombian border, the state news agency reported. A brigadier general was among those killed.President Hugo Chavez said the soldiers were patrolling the 1,400-mile (2,300-kilometer) border separating Venezuela and Colombia when the local military base lost contact with their Mi-17 helicopter shortly after midday. The helicopter crashed in a mountainous area called ElCapote, the state-run Bolivarian News Agency reported.Two pilots and the entire crew were killed. Army Brig.Gen. Domingo Alberto Feneite and Cristian Velazquez, a civilian, were among the victims, according to the state news agency.Chavez sent condolences to the families of the victims during his weekly television and radio program. “They died while they were on duty and serving the fatherland," he said.Neither Chavez nor the Venezuelan military mentioned the cause of the crash.
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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