tribuneindia...Spotlight

			Saturday, December 26, 1998
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14 LTTE men die in naval attack
COLOMBO, Dec 25 (PTI) — Fourteen LTTE rebels, including an area leader, were killed when their vessel was destroyed by a Sri Lankan naval craft off Chalai along the rebel-held northeastern Mullaithivu coast last month, a Defence Ministry release said today. Quoting delayed reports, the release said 14 rebels, including group leader Valluvan, were killed in the naval attack on November 10 and added that the LTTE vessel’s entire "logistic consignment" was also destroyed. However, clandestine rebel radio "Voice of Tigers" acknowledged the loss of nine LTTE men. The news of LTTE’s casualties comes close on the heels of the death of 12 senior LTTE rebels in Mullaithivu and northwest Mannar provinces while clashing with the security forces in the past few days.

Bharat Ratna
CHENNAI, Dec 25 (PTI) — The Tamil Nadu unit of the Janata Dal today appealed to the BJP-led coalition government to ‘take back’ Bharat Ratna conferred posthumously on Jayaprakash Narayan, charging that it had done so to "placate the people of Bihar". The government had also not given any reason for conferring the award on Jayaprakash Narayan, JD state unit president G A Vadivelu said in a statement here. Perhaps, he said the award must have been given to the late leader for opposing the Emergency and safeguarding democracy.

Boat mishap
DIAMOND HARBOUR (WB), Dec 25 (PTI) — Two children were killed and 16 persons were missing after a mechanised boat carrying Christmas revellers capsized in the Hooghly here today, the police said. The boat carrying 30 persons, including two boatmen, sank near the CPT Ghat, it said, adding 14 persons, including two women, were rescued. Of those rescued, two children aged seven to eight years, died in hospital, it said. A picnic party from Calcutta had rented a mechanised boat here for a cruise. Divers from Calcutta Port Trust had been rushed to the area to conduct rescue operations.

Mother kills kids
ISLAMABAD, Dec 25 (AFP) — Starvation led a woman to poison herself and her three minor sons to death in a Pakistani village as the Muslim fasting month of Ramazan got under way, an official news agency said today. Sughran, mother of five, gave pesticide to three-year-old Zubair and six-year-old twins Arif and Tariq and then took the poison herself yesterday, Associated Press of Pakistan reported. Dozens of suicides linked to poverty have been reported from different parts of Pakistan in the past several months.

Coalmine blast
BEIJING, Dec 25 (PTI) — A major mine explosion in China's northeastern province of Liaoning yesterday killed 28 miners and injured one, the Xinhua news agency reported today. The accident occurred yesterday at the Hongling mine in the suburbs of the provincial capital of Shenyang, it said.