Couple rescued, ship captain held

The ship ran aground near the island of Giglio, off the Tuscan coast, late on Friday

A honeymoon couple have been rescued from the capsized cruise liner in Italy as the ship's captain and first officer are being held by police on suspicion of manslaughter.

The South Korean newlyweds were stranded two decks below on the half-submerged Costa Concordia but were brought to shore from the liner a day after the disaster.

Rescuers who had been banging on the doors of the ship cabins saved a South Korean newlywed couple

in the non-submerged part of the vessel heard a reply in the early hours of this morning, a fire chief said.

The couple, in their late twenties, were said to be in good health.

Teenage girl held captive and raped

A 15-year-old girl in Indonesia was raped almosr daily and forced to use meth when she was held captive for 11 days by an acquaintance.

Jakarta Regional Police Head of Mobile Investigation Unit II, Comm. Ardianto Tedjo Baskoro, said that the victim met with the male acquaintance on Aug 24 at Bogor Trade Mall. "Since then the victim did not return to her parents' house," said Ardianto.

Her mother immediately searched for her at the homes of relatives and the man's close friends, but she was nowhere to be found. Later she received a text message informing that her daughter was in Kampung Ambon, West Jakarta.

Four teens held for sodomizing, murdering Madurai boy

MADURAI - Police have found that the eight-year-old ,whose body was found in a wooden box at a school near here a few days ago, was sodomized and strangled to death by five teenagers.

Four school students , aged between 14 and 17, and an 18-year-old daily wage labourer were arrested for the crime on Thursday.

"All the five hail from Kilavaneri, the victim's village. They used to gather behind the school to drink liquor or smoke beedi . On July 16, they spotted P Jayasurya (8),(pic) who was playing hide-and-seek with friends, entering the school around 4.30pm.

They grabbed Jayasurya , took him to the school bathroom and sodomized him. The boy fell unconscious. Fearing that Jayasurya would expose them, they strangled him and dumped the body in a wooden box," said a police officer.

2 held for parading woman naked

PAKISTAN - Police in Haripur said they have arrested two men for stripping a woman naked and parading her in a village. One of the offenders had accused the woman's son of having illicit relations with his wife, the police said, reported BBC on Tuesday.

Police said villagers where the incident took place did not try to stop it because the offenders were armed. Haripur district police chief Mohammad Ali Gandapur told the BBC that a resident of Nilor Bala village had complained to village elders that two men had had illicit relations with his wife.

According to the police, a village council advised the complainant to divorce his wife. Instead, he and four armed men stormed the house belonging to the mother of one of the men alleged to have slept with his wife in order to kill her son.

Because the son was not there, the men dragged the mother out, stripped her and made her walk through the village, the police said. They have now registered a case against seven people, but only two have been arrested so far.

They said they were looking for other offenders.

In 2002, Mukhtaran Mai was gang-raped by members of a tribe in the Meerwala village in Muzaffargarh after her brother was accused of developing relations with a local woman.

AFP adds: The incident happened after neighbour Mohammad Salman grew suspicious that the woman's sons slept with his wife in Neelor Bala village, 100 kilometres north of Islamabad, said police official Akhtar Nawaz.

Enraged Salman and his brothers went to confront the suspects, who were identified only as Rashid and Kazim, but they had fled, leaving behind their mother, Nawaz said.

"No one has come to lodge a formal complaint. Police registered a case themselves after receiving reports from local residents," he told AFP.

An investigation is underway and two people have been taken into custody for questioning, he said. Police investigation officer Shabbir Hussain Shah said the statement of the woman, who is aged about 50, had been recorded.

Salman, who works in Lahore, believed that one of the brothers had got his wife pregnant while he was away from home, Shah said.

For more information, please click here