LOS ANGELES: CIA director Leon Panetta said Monday US intelligence officials did not know the exact whereabouts of all Pakistan's nuclear weapons, but believed they were safe from the Taliban.Speaking in Los Angeles, the Central Intelligence Agency chief said Pakistan's nuclear arsenal was "pretty secure" amid concerns that the weapons could possibly fall into the hands of Taliban insurgents. "We don't have frankly the intelligence to know where they are all located, but we do track the Pakistanis," Panetta said when asked if the US knew where Pakistan's nuclear weapons were located."Right now we are confident that the Pakistanis do have a pretty secure approach to trying to protect these weapons. But it is something that we continue to watch because obviously the last thing we want is for the Taliban to have access to nuclear weapons in Pakistan." Pakistan forces have been locked in an offensive with Taliban fighters in the country for several weeks. The fighting comes amid intense US pressure to crack down on militants in the northwest of the country, which Washington says pose the most serious terrorist threat to the West. Panetta was speaking at a luncheon hosted by the non-partisan Pacific Council on International Policy think tank in Los Angeles.
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
Comments