UNITA says 200 massacred

LUANDA: The former Angolan rebel movement UNITA said yesterday that government forces massacred more than 200 of its supporters when they attacked the hotel where they lived in the southern town of Lubango.

Military sources said the troops recaptured the town, 700 kilometres south of Luanda, as fighting died down after fierce clashes.

Hitman's victim LONDON: Millionaire property dealer Mr Donald Urqhart, 55, who shot dead near his home, was the victim of a professional assassin. He was ambushed by a hitman on a motorcycle as he walked hand-in-hand with his girlfriend in Marylebone High Street. Separately, Manchester youth John Stanley, 14, was gunned down as he queued at a takeaway food store in the city's Moss Side district.

Milken freed LOS ANGELES: Former junk-bond king Mr Michael Milken, who came to embody Wall Street excesses during the 1980s ''decade of greed'', has been released to a halfway house after serving 22 months in prison for securities fraud.

Hired gunmen CALUMET CITY, Illinois: A man recruited two men to kill his parents because he did not want to have to ask them for money anymore, police said. They said David Gorzelanny, 38, confessed after reporting finding the bodies of his parents, Frank and Evelyn. Both were 74, and each had been shot once in the head.

Smoking deaths LONDON: Passive smoking kills nearly 140,000 people in Europe every year through heart disease and cancers, a scientific report issued by the British pressure group Association for Nonsmokers' Rights said.

Top police post LIMA: Peru's anti-terrorist chief, Lieutenant-General Antonio Vidal, who became a national hero after his agents captured Shining Path rebel chief Abimael Guzman, has been named inspector of the National Police.

Farm bombed JOHANNESBURG: At least 13 people were killed in scattered unrest across South Africa and a farm near the city of Port Elizabeth was bombed in a possible attack by black radicals.

Agencies