tribuneindia...Spotlight

			Friday, January 29, 1999
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Laden ‘financing’ B’desh militants
DHAKA, Jan 28 (PTI) — The Bangladesh police today claimed to have unearthed a link between Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden and Muslim extremist group "Harkat ul Jihad al Islami", which is allegedly engaged in subversive activities in the country, with the arrest of a South African of Indian origin and a Pakistani. Ahmed Sadeq, a South African diamond trader of Indian origin and a "close friend" of Osama bin Laden, told intelligence officials that Laden had sanctioned 2 crore takas for recruiting cadres and conducting terrorist activities in Bangladesh, the official BSS news agency said.

New SC judge
NEW DELHI, Jan 28 (UNI) — Orissa High Court Chief Justice S.N.Phukan was today sworn in as a judge of the Supreme Court. Chief Justice of India A.S.Anand, administered the oath of office to him at a simple ceremony. With this, the number of judges in the court goes to 124 as against the sanctioned strength of 126.

9 die in mishaps
BHOPAL, Jan 28 (PTI) — Nine persons were killed and nine others injured in two separate accidents in Morena and Guna districts of Madhya Pradesh during the past 12 hours. Five employees of the L G Hotline Company were killed and five others injured when their jeep fell into the Kwari river, 5 km from Morena early today. The District Superintendent of Police said the occupants of the jeep were returning to Gwalior from Agra.

Ershad’s warning
DHAKA, Jan 28 (PTI) — Former Bangladeshi President and Jatiya Party supremo Hussein Mohammad Ershad has asked the party’s 11 dissident MPs, who attended Parliament on Monday defying his directive, to return to the party fold or face "political doom". Mr Ershad, who recently switched his party’s allegiance from the ruling Awami League to opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, also asked the party’s senior presidium member and former Prime Minister Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury not to be "used by the government" in dividing the party.