Talks on ending war

　　THAILAND: Top-level negotiators from the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels start talks on Monday to try to end one of Asia's longest-running and deadliest wars.

　　The 12 hours of talks over three days at a high-security naval base in neutral Thailand are aimed at permanently ending a conflict that has killed 64,000 people and made the tropical island's name synonymous with war over the past two decades.

　　Polling stations attacked

　　INDIA: An Indian policeman was killed when suspected Islamic militants fired on two polling stations in Indian Kashmir yesterday, hours before voting began in elections for a new state assembly, a police official said.

　　The policeman was killed when guerrillas staged a pre-dawn attack on a polling station at a school in the Poonch district of the state.

　　Yesterday was the first of four voting days up to October 8 in the disputed region where more than 35,000 people have been killed in a 13-year-old revolt against Indian rule.

　　14 die off Sicily

　　SICILY: Fourteen would-be migrants from Liberia drowned Sunday after the rickety boat they were traveling on sank as it neared the Sicilian coast, officials said.

　　The Italian coast guard and border patrol rescued another 92 people from the sea off the southern city of Agrigento, 12 of whom were hospitalized, said coast guard Cmdr. Giuseppe Rando.

　　Notorious prison closing

　　BRAZIL: Defiant to the end, the last inmates left Brazil's massive Carandiru prison Sunday shouting curses and banging on the walls of their bus as authorities closed the facility billed by prisoners as a "university for crime."

　　Built in 1956 as a detention to center to house as many as 3,250 inmates awaiting trial, it quickly became an overcrowded prison housing, at times, as many as 8,000 convicted criminals.

　　The prison gained international notoriety in 1992 when police killed 111 inmates during a prison riot.