tribuneindia...Spotlight

			Monday, April 19, 1999
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19 burnt to death
BEIJING, April 18 (Reuters) — A raging fire swept through a lumber processing factory in central China last week, killing 19 people, China police daily said in a weekend edition. The fire, in the city of Nanyang in Henan province, began in the early hours of Thursday. By the time it was extinguished an hour later, 13 buildings within the factory had been burnt to the ground, the newspaper said.
3 cops killed
KATHMANDU, April 18 (AFP) — Three policemen have been killed in an ambush by Maoist insurgents at Gajul bridge in Rolpa district, the police said today. The three police constables died in an ambush by Maoist insurgents at Gajul bridge, which lies between Pipal village and Pokhara village in Rolpa district yesterday morning, a police spokesman said. Four others of the mobile police team that comprised 13 police personnel were injured in the ambush.
Afghan fighting
KABUL, April 18 (AP) — The Taliban religious army and their opponents waged fierce battles on several fronts in northern Afghanistan today. According to an Opposition spokesman, who identified himself only as Abdullah, fighting has been heavy in northern Faryab province, where they are claiming to have made gains.

21 killed in Jaffna
COLOMBO, April 18 (PTI) — Eighteen LTTE rebels and three policemen were killed in renewed fighting between Sri Lankan troops and the rebels in the north, the Army said here today. A defence release said fifteen Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in two different attacks by the Army at Paranthan in northern Jaffna peninsula yesterday. In another incidents three LTTE rebels hiding inside a bunker in a rebel safe house were killed by troops at Vaddukoddai in Jaffna.
32 miners drowned
BEIJING, April 18 (AFP) — Thirty-two persons were drowned while working in two coal mines in the northern Chinese province of Hebei which had been ordered by the government to close down, state media reported today. The mines, on the edge of a reservoir, had been ordered to shut in 1998 after water seeped into the pits. But the miners had secretly resumed work and drowned after water flooded in on March 7 this year.
9 sentenced to death
HUCKSTEP (Egypt), April 18 (AFP) — Nine Egyptian Islamic militant supporters of suspected international terrorist Osama Bin Laden were sentenced to death here today. Of the 107 tried at the military court north of Cairo, 78 were given prison sentences. Only 47 of the defendants, however, were actually in custody for the trial, with the others still at large. It was not immediately clear which of those sentenced were in police custody.