Tuesday, September 01, 2009 PARIS: US and NATO troops have inflicted “vast damage” on the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, seizing strongholds and making a dent in the militia’s drug trade, US special envoy Richard Holbrooke said on Monday.Holbrooke, who has visited the southern Helmand province twice in recent weeks, told France 24 in an interview that a major US offensive launched last month was showing results. “The coalition forces including the British and Americans have done vast damage to the Taliban, disrupted them, captured major caches of opium, heroin and drug paraphernalia,” he said. His comments came as the US and NATO commander in Afghanistan submitted a review calling for a revised strategy to defeat the Taliban and reverse the country’s serious situation.General Stanley McChrystal’s review, compiled since he took up command in mid-June, had been widely anticipated under US President Barack Obama’s strategy putting Afghanistan at the heart of his foreign policy. Holbrooke was in Paris ahead of a meeting on Wednesday with his counterparts from France, Germany, Britain and the United Nations to chart a way forward in Afghanistan following the elections. The US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan reiterated that the “door is open for dialogue with members of the Taliban who renounce Al Qaeda and violence”.
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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