Two non-resident Indian's honoured: Two non-resident Indians (NRIs) are among ten entrepreneurs named for the 1998 Best Entrepreneurs Award by the international consulting firm Ernst & Young. Entrepreneurs Ram Mukunda and Sudhakar V Shenoy were chosen for outstanding entrepreneurship in the greater Washington area this year, a company release said. Mukunda, who got the award for communications, is founder and CEO ofStartec Global Communications, a facilities-based international long distance carrier. Shenoy, who won the award in the high technology category, is the founder and CEO of Information Management Consultants Inc.

`Threat prompted Khan's father to give false version': The attorney of Pakistani nuclear scientist Iftikhar Khan Chaudhry, who is seeking asylum in the US, has strongly contested Islamabad's claim that his client is not a nuclear scientist but an accountant. The attorney Michael Wildes indicated that the statement made by Chaudhry's father that his son worked in a company that makes bathroom tiles was due to the threat faced by his family from the Pakistani intelligence services. In interviews with American television and media, Wildes said his client was seeking asylum in the US as he feared for his life and would be executed if he returned to Pakistan.

`Khan never worked for us': The controversy over the Pakistani nuclear scientist, who had defected and is seeking asylum in theUnited States, has taken an interesting turn with a private sanitary company refuting government's claim that he had worked for it. Pakistani authorities had earlier said that Iftikhar Choudhry Khan, who claims to have been associated with the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), was, in fact, only an assistant accountant with the private company dealing in tiles and bathroom fittings. Though one Asad Shaikh, claiming to be a director of that company, appeared on the Pakistan Television a couple of days ago and declared that Khan had worked for the company till last year, a fax sent to the newspaper offices declared that, "the Frontier Ceramics has nothing do with either Iftekhar Choudhry or Asad Shaikh", media reports said.

Thai finance minister rules out quick rate cuts: Thai finance minister Tarrin Nimmanahaeminda said the government could not soon cut Thai interest rates to ease a domestic credit crunch without risking possible new pressure on a stabilised baht. The baht's sustainedstability is a prerequisite for government efforts to bring down interest rates, which must be made gradually to avoid fuelling inflation, Tarrin told an economic seminar. "Hasty interest rate cuts would affect the baht and push up inflation that could provoke capital flight. Under those circumstances, we could see much higher interest rates," he said.UN experts end N-weapons talks with Iraq: A team from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has completed four days of talks with Iraqi officials on the country's nuclear arms programme, an UN official said. Janet Sullivan, special assistant to the director of the UN Baghdad Monitoring and Verification Centre said the talks had been aimed at clarifying `a number of questions and concerns regarding Iraq's clandestine nuclear programme.' Florida evacuations climb to 70,000 as fires rage: Wildfires raged through tinder-dry brush in Florida, forcing authorities to order 30,000 people evacuated from a coastal county where three blazesthreatened to unite into one giant fire storm. State emergency managers told all residents of Flagler county in north Florida to evacuate as fierce brush fires move into neighbourhoods in the town of Bunnell, which one official said was `seriously threatened.'