Wednesday, December 02, 2009 PARIS: France and Germany refused US requests to immediately promise more troops for Afghanistan, frustrating President Barack Obama's hopes that allies would match his troop surge. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, terming Obama’s new Afghan policy encouraging, stressed on the world community to support it. However, he said that France would wait until January 28 International Conference on Afghanistan in London for taking any decision, affirmative or negative, on sending more troops to Afghanistan.German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country would also wait until after the London Afghanistan Conference and the decision to send more German troops to Afghanistan could not be taken before that. She said that Afghanistan security issue could not be solved by military means only.
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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