Plane wreckage
KATHMANDU, Aug 25 (AFP) — Searchers today finally found the wreckage of a twin Otter aircraft missing since Friday last but officials said none of the 18 persons on board could have survived the initial crash. An Army helicopter spotted the wreckage 11 km south of Mount Annapurna, state radio announced. The plane, on hire to Lumbini Airways, is believed to have crashed into a mountainside and disintegrated.

Mass leave by staff
AIZAWAL, Aug 25 (PTI) — The Mizoram Government employees today launched a three-day mass casual leave agitation demanding immediate implementation of the Fifth Pay Commission recommendations. T. Sangkunga, president of the Federation of Mizoram Government Employees (FMGE), which has 80 per cent of the government employees as its members and has organised the agitation, said the government had not fulfilled their demands. Chief Minister Lalthanhawla, however, said his government had accepted the recommendations but was facing a financial crisis.

BBC channel
NEW DELHI, Aug 25 (PTI) — BBC World has no plans to become a pay channel in India and will continue to remain ‘free to air’, generating its resources from advertising revenues, a senior channel official has said. "The channel has no plans to become a pay channel and its revenues in India, like the rest of the world, would keep coming from advertising," general manager of BBC World (India) Meenakshi Sachdev Varma said here today.

MLA held, freed
KANCHEEPURAM, Aug 25 (PTI) — A DMK member of the Tamil Nadu Assembly, K. Venu, was arrested for allegedly abusing an election officer and disrupting the conduct of elections in the Kancheepuram Central Cooperative Bank here, the police said here today. The legislator from Gummidipundi, who was confined last night to the room in a hotel where he was staying, was released on bail this morning. Venu was arrested following a complaint lodged by Election Officer M. Karunanidhi.

Ayurvedic nurses
JAIPUR, Aug 25 (PTI) — The Rajasthan Government has decided to raise the pay scale of nurses working in the Ayurvedic hospitals of the state to the level of those working at the Centre, Deputy Chief Minister Hari Shankar Bhabhra today said. The Ayurvedic nursing staff were on agitation for the past one month, demanding pay parity with their Central Government counterparts.

30 killed in Uganda
KAMPALA, Aug 25 (AFP) — At least 30 persons may have been killed when a bomb exploded in a Ugandan passenger bus bound for Rwanda at the mid-day today, according to a radio report. The bomb went off as the bus entered western Uganda’s lake Mburo national park between Masaka and Mbarara, 260 km west of here, killing an unspecified number of passengers. The bus then lost control and rammed into a passenger minibus, killing all 16 persons.

BJP leader shot
MUMBAI, Aug 25 (PTI) — A prominent BJP leader of Mumbai was shot dead by two gunmen at his residence here today, sparking tension in the area. Mr Om Prakash Mishra, a former president of the party’s north Mumbai unit, was shot in the stomach by the gunmen at his Borivali residence at around 5.30 a.m., the police said. He was immediately rushed to nearby Bhagwati Hospital where he succumbed to injuries. BJP activists resorted to stone-throwing and gave a call for a bandh in the area to protest alleged negligence of doctors. They claimed timely medical aid could have saved the life of Mr Mishra, a fruit vendor.

Quake jolts Tibet
BEIJING, Aug 25 (PTI)— An earthquake measuring six on the Richter Scale struck the south-west part of Xainza in China’s Tibet autonomous region today, official reports said. The severe quake jolted the area at 1.11p.m. (IST), Xinhua news agency said.

RJD ultimatum
PATNA, Aug 25 (PTI) — The Bihar Government today served an ultimatum on the Centre threatening to disconnect power supply to Coal India Limited (CILl) and its subsidiaries if the latter failed to ensure payment of huge arrears of over Rs 1700 crore within a fortnight. Charging the Centre with "discriminating" against the state’s interests, Energy Minister Jagdanand Singh said the CIL and its subsidiary companies owed to the Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) around Rs 1734.81 crore as on March 31, 1997 towards energy bills.

37 massacred
VATICAN CITY, Aug 25 (AFP) — At least 37 persons, including a priest and three nuns, were massacred in a parish in the eastern part of war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, the Vatican said today. It said the massacre took place yesterday at the parish in Kasika, near Uvira in Kivu province, part of the volatile great lakes region on the Rwandan, Ugandan and Burundian borders, where a Tutsi rebellion erupted on August 2.

Ordinance on CVC
NEW DELHI, Aug 25 (PTI) — The government tonight promulgated an ordinance conferring statutory status on the Central Vigilance Commission giving it wide-ranging powers to supervise the functioning of investigating agencies like the CBI and Enforcement Directorate and Recommend appointment of their heads. The ordinance also provides that directors of the CBI and the ED shall not be transferred except with the previous consent of the respective committees.

9 killed in road accident
From Our Correspondent
SHAHBAD, Aug 25 — Nine persons were killed and seven others injured in a head-on collision between a truck and a four-wheeler on the GT Road near Sharifgarh village, about 7 km from here, last night. The truck, which was coming from the Delhi side, collided with the four-wheeler which was coming towards Pipli. Eight persons were killed on the spot while one of the two seriously injured who were taken to the PGI, Chandigarh, died there. The victims are said to have hailed from Ranchi in Bihar.