WASHINGTON: The United States on Monday repeated its call on Israel to put an end to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. "The policy of the United States government for many decades has been: no more settlements, that's not something that is new with this administration," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters. Gibbs made the remarks hours before US President Barack Obama meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. The US-Israeli summit meeting comes as the Obama administration is pressing the Israeli government and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to re-launch their long-stalled peace talks. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to step down because of the Netanyahu-led government's refusal to fully freeze Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank. Some 450,000 Israelis live in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
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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