Wednesday, December 02, 2009 WASHINGTON: Tuesday night President Barack Obama will announce his strategy for fighting and finishing the war in Afghanistan.Up before dawn, President Obama held an hourlong videoconference with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, outlining his revised battle plan."What the President will tonight announce is an acceleration of that strategy to take on Al Qaeda and its extremist allies, an acceleration of our training of Afghan national security forces," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs explained on the Today Show.President Obama has already issued the orders. The first of nearly 34,000 troops will deploy to Afghanistan starting next month.The president spoke directly to General Stanley McChrystal, then yesterday laid out his plan to leaders of Britain, France and Russia.Among the leading dissenters is Vice President Joe Biden, skeptical like many Americans of expanding the war.Even supporters of the Obama path say time is short."The next election is really the deadline," says a Military Analyst and retired Army General Barry McCaffrey. "So, there's 36 months to show substantial change in the ground situation."The president has invited about 30 lawmakers to talk about the war plan Tuesday afternoon.Hearings start Wednesday when the Secretaries of State and Defense face questions on strategy and cost.
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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