"The pirates fired at the INS Tabar, which is patrolling the waters off the Somali coast. The ship retaliated and sank the pirate vessel," an Indian Navy official said.

The Times of India said the pirate ship, accompanied by several speed boats, was sunk when it attempted to ram the Tabar. No casualties have been reported on board the Indian warship. It is not clear what happened to the pirates after their ship was sunk.

Indian military vessels were dispatched to the Gulf of Aden on October 3. On November 11, the Tabar thwarted an attempt by pirates to capture the M V Jag Arnav, an Indian merchant vessel.

Despite a large international naval presence in the region, at least two more seizures were reported Wednesday. Pirates have hijacked a Thai fishing boat with 16 crew members onboard and a Greek bulk carrier.

Somali pirates are currently holding at least 17 vessels, including the Saudi Arabian supertanker MV Sirius Star, which was seized on Tuesday hundreds of miles off the coast of Kenya in the most brazen attack by Somali pirates. The supertanker could hold up to 25 percent of Saudi Arabia's daily oil output, and the seizure caused world oil prices to rise slightly after the news was announced.

Pirates have attacked around 83 ships so far this year, resulting in the seizure of around 33 vessels, including 200 crew members. The East African nation has been without a functioning government since 1991 and has no navy to police its coastline.

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UKRAINE PRESIDENT SAYS RUSSIA NOT TO BLAME FOR STALIN-ERA FAMINE

KIEV, Ukraine _ Ukraine insists the Stalin-era famine known as the Holodomor was an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people, but does not blame any individual state for it, the country's president said on Wednesday.

Speaking at a ceremony to unveil a memorial in a village in western Ukraine, one of the areas hardest hit by the early 1930s famine, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said, as quoted by his press service: "Ukraine does not blame any nation or state for the great famine."

Yushchenko said "the totalitarian Communist regime" was to blame for the Holodomor.

Nationalist groups in ex-Soviet Ukraine have insisted Russia, as legal successor to the former Soviet Union, must be responsible for the tragedy and have demanded compensation.

The famine was caused by forced collectivization. Estimates as to the amount of victims in Ukraine vary greatly, with some 2 million being the lower end of the scale. British historian Robert Service has suggested that some 14 million people lost their lives.

The famine also took the lives of millions of people from different ethnic groups in vast territories in the North Caucasus, the Volga region, central Russia, Kazakhstan, west Siberia, and the south Urals.

Ukraine is holding Holodomor commemoration events on November 17 through 22.

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EXPERTS BLAME COMPUTER GLITCH FOR RUSSIAN NUCLEAR SUB DEATHS

MOSCOW _ The deaths of 20 people on board the Nerpa nuclear submarine could have been caused by a computer glitch, not a crew member, a Russian daily reported on Wednesday.

The tragedy occurred late on November 8 while the Nerpa was undergoing sea trials in the Sea of Japan. Three submariners and 17 shipyard workers died in the accident. There were 208 people, 81 of them submariners, on board the vessel at the time.

"We submariners are unanimous: a computer program failed.