Tuesday, June 16, 2009 YEKATERINBURG: Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Russia on Tuesday to attend a security summit, in his first trip abroad following his disputed election victory, an official in the Iranian delegation said."Yes, yes, yes, his plane is now sitting" at the airport in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in the Urals Mountains, the Iranian official said on condition of anonymity. Ahmadinejad was expected in Russia on Monday, but postponed his trip following unrest over his disputed election victory. A Kremlin spokesman confirmed Ahmadinejad's arrival, saying the Iranian leader would participate in a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a six-group regional security organization dominated by Russia and China. The group also includes Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Iran has in the past expressed interest in becoming a full member and currently has observer status. Ahmadinejad was initially scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev but the Kremlin spokesman said that meeting has been cancelled. His visit to Russia, Iran's key ally, is Ahmadinejad's first foreign trip since his landslide re-election victory over his moderate rival Mir Hossein Mousavi sparked two days of street protests and some of the worst rioting in Tehran in a decade.
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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