Sunday, September 13, 2009 WASHIGTON: The Obama administration plans to issue new guidelines meant to provide prisoners at a U.S. detention center in Afghanistan greater latitude in challenging their detention, The New York Times reported in its Sunday edition.Citing Pentagon officials and advocates for detainees at the U.S.-run prison at Bagram Air Base, the newspaper said each of the approximately 600 detainees would be assigned a U.S. military official who would have the authority to look for evidence, including witnesses and classified material, for any detainee challenging his detention.A military-appointed review board would hear the challenges, the Times said. The new policies expected to be announced as early as this week, after congressional review, the paper reported, but it was unclear how quickly they could be implemented. The detainees, some of whom have been held for more than five years, have no access to lawyers, the Times said, nor do they have the right to hear the accusations against them. Only cursory review of their "enemy combatant" status is in place. "We don't want to hold anyone we don't have to hold," a Defense Department official requesting anonymity told the newspaper. "It's just about doing the right thing." More than 600 prisoners are held at Bagram's makeshift prison, where human rights activists say prisoners have been protesting allegedly inhumane conditions in recent months.
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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