Saturday, November 28, 2009 TOKYO: Japan on Saturday launched a next-generation spy satellite as part of efforts to beef up its surveillance system against the threat of North Korea's missiles, officials said.An H-2A rocket carrying the nation's No. 3 Information Gathering Satellite was launched Saturday morning from Tanegashima Space Centre on Tanegashima island, southwestern Japan, the officials said."We successfully separated the satellite from the rocket and put it into orbit," said Toshimitsu Ozeki, an official of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which built the rocket.The government-run satellite will replace the first model, with an advanced optical device to distinguish objects on the ground with a resolution of some 60 centimetres (24 inches), the officials and local media said.The new satellite will undergo a performance trial for about three months before starting fully-fledged operations, Kyodo News reported.The launch is the nation's latest effort to build an intelligence-gathering system following North Korea's missile launch in 1998 over the Japanese archipelago.In defiance of international pressure, North Korea launched again what was believed to be a three-stage Taepodong-2 missile in April, with an estimated range of 6,700 kilometers (4,100 miles).Japan currently operates two optical satellites and a radar satellite, while planning to add another radar satellite by March 2013 to complete the system so that it will be able to monitor designated places on the Earth once a day.The satellite launched Saturday cost about 48.7 billion yen (580 million dollars) for research and development and around 9.4 billion yen for manufacturing and the launch, Kyodo said.
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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