Thursday, September 17, 2009 LONDON: The number of people out of work in the UK has risen to its highest level in 14 years, official figures have shown.Unemployment increased by 210,000 to 2.47m in the three months to July, taking the jobless rate to 7.9%, the Office for National Statistics said. Claims for unemployment benefit in August grew by 24,400 from July to 1.61m, the highest since May 1997. And one in five people aged between 16 and 24 is now looking for work, the highest on record, the data showed. The number of jobless in this age group rose from 928,000 to 947,000 - edging closer to the landmark of one million and adding to fears of a new "lost generation" of young people. Work and Pensions Secretary, Yvette Cooper, said the government was targeting investment to help young people find jobs. "Young people are always more heavily affected by recession because, it's the easiest thing for employers to do, to put back recruitment for a year," she told media. "That's why you've got to help young people get that first step on the ladder and that's why a lot of our extra investment is all in getting those young people into those first jobs, that first bit of training or work experience, to get them started." Shadow work and pensions secretary Theresa May said that the levels of youth unemployment were "disturbing", and that there was an urgent need to "tackle this culture of worklessness".
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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