tribuneindia...Spotlight

			Monday, August 23, 1999
weather today's calendar

Plane crash-lands in Hong Kong
HONG KONG, Aug 22 (DPA) — A China Airlines plane with 315 passengers on board came to a fiery crash-landing at Hong Kong’s airport under severe weather conditions this evening. Airport authorities and reports from the scene said the Taiwanese plane, arriving from Bangkok, crash-landed just as Typhoon Sam was hitting the territory. TV reports showed the plane lying upside down on the runway and burning. Witnesses said the plane looked like a fireball as it crashed.

9 Tigers killed
COLOMBO, Aug 22 (AFP) — A Tamil newspaper office was attacked with grenades in Sri Lanka’s northern town of Jaffna as troops shot dead at least nine Tiger guerrillas in fresh fighting, defence officials said here today. Unidentified attackers lobbed grenades at the Uthayam newspaper office in Jaffna last night, wounding an unarmed security guard and another person, officials said.

20 massacred
PARIS, Aug 22 (PTI) — Hopes of peace returning to Algeria were dashed as rebels today killed 20 civilians, including 14 children, by slitting their throats near capital Algiers while the government vowed to punish the perpetrators of the criminal act. In a gruesome act, Muslim rebels entered a house in Quzra and slaughtered 14 children before hurling a bomb at the gathering, French Radio said.

Attack on embassy
TEHERAN, Aug 22 (AFP) — Gunmen opened fire on the Pakistani Embassy here, seriously wounding one policeman and lightly wounding another, diplomatic sources said today. They said a guard was in serious condition after being shot three times in the stomach when three gunmen shot at the embassy early yesterday. A second policeman was in stable condition after being shot in the leg, they said.

Bihar floods
PATNA, Aug 22 (PTI) — Five more persons were killed in flood-related incidents in Bihar over the past two days, taking the toll to 227 as the overall flood situation remained grim. Official sources said the deaths, all by drowning, were reported from West Champaran (two), East Champaran (one) and Sitamarhi (two). Major rivers like the Koshi, the Burhi Gandak, the Kamala Balan and the Ganga are still in spate.

10 drowned in PoK
MUZAFFARABAD, Aug 22 (AFP) — Ten persons were drowned when their jeep plunged into a river at Rara, south of here, in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) today, the police said. Three of the passengers escaped by jumping out, a police official said. He said all persons in the vehicle were visitors on a picnic from Pakistan’s Punjab province.

Raisa Gorbachev
MUENSTER (Germany), Aug 22 (AFP) — Ms Raisa Gorbachev, wife of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, is to undergo a bone marrow transplant next week, a spokeswoman at the clinic where she is being treated for leukaemia said today. The transplant, using marrow donated by the former Soviet first lady’s younger sister, will take place "in the middle of next week if Ms Raisa Gorbachev is prepared to undergo it," spokeswoman Franziska Cabbula said.