News from India Newspaper (r)

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  "Burmese military kills 6 in drug chase"

Rangoon, Jan 29: Six alleged drug traffickers were killed in a shootout
between a Burmese military patrol and a narcotics gang in northeastern
Shan state, officials said on Thursday.
 A massive 122kg of heroin and 75kg of opium were seized in the raid on
Sunday, while two mobile refineries used to transform opium into heroin
were found, a statement said.
 No further details of the raid near the village of Mahn Kalaun were
provided in the official statement.
 Burma, along with Thailand and Laos, forms parts of the notorious
Golden Triangle, the world's main source of opium.
 Recent official figures here revealed that 1,400-kg of heroin and 7,883
kg of raw opium were seized in raids across the country last year in
crackdown by the police, the Army and custom officials.
 A total of 4,446 people, including 915 women, were arrested in the
raids, statistics showed.  (AFP)

"THE ASIAN AGE"
Date 30 January 1998.


   "Mines kill 5 near Burma"

Chittagong, Jan 29: Five people were killed and several others, injured
by landmines near the Bangladesh-Burma border in the past week,
officials said on Thursday.
 An official of the paramilitary, Bangladesh Rifles Border Force said
the lastest victim was a Bangladeshi killed on Wednesday in a blast near
the frontier town Nikhangchari, 317 km from Dhaka.
 Four others, Bangladeshi woodcutters as well as a Burmese national
trying to enter Bangladesh were killed earlier in the week in similar
incidents, he said.
 Myanmar's Nasaka border forces earlier told the BDR they have sown
mines near their camps to prevent possible attacks by "miscreants", an
apparent reference to the Burmese insurgent groups.  (AFP)

"THE ASIAN AGE"
Date 30 January 1998.