COLOMBO (Sri Lanka) - A SRI Lankan health official says at least 38 civilians have been killed and 140 others wounded in government artillery attacks and air raids on a tiny rebel-controlled territory that includes a government designated 'no-fire zone'.

NEW DELHI (India) - A HEPATITIS outbreak in the Indian state of Gujarat has left 19 people dead in less than two weeks said health officials on Wednesday.

The top official of Gujarat's Sabarkantha district, Malayappan Thennarasan told CNN that at least 70 more people have caught the same strain of the virus in the last 10 days; 17 have been hospitalised.

TOKYO - A COURT has handed a life sentence to a man who abducted and killed a young woman before chopping up her body and flushing her remains down the toilet.

Takanori Hoshijima - a 34-year-old computer programmer labelled a "demon with a human face" by the victim's relatives - was found guilty of murder and sentenced in Tokyo District Court, a court spokeswoman said.