KUALA LUMPUR - POLICE arrested a female newscaster of a private television station and 25 others who took part in a sex party at a hotel room in Jalan P. Ramlee on Thursday.

Nine tested positive for drugs, said ASP Mahani Ahmad of the vice, gambling and secret society branch.

YANGON - MYANMAR will expel 19 North Koreans who were arrested early last month for illegally entering the military-run country, a senior police official said on Thursday.

The group were trying to get to South Korea via China and Southeast Asia, an increasingly popular route for North Koreans trying to escape hunger and repression in their communist homeland, the official said.

KUALA LUMPUR - A MALAYSIAN military helicopter saved an Indian tanker from being hijacked on Thursday, foiling the new year's first attack by pirates in the dangerous Gulf of Aden off the chaotic African nation of Somalia, an official said.

'This was a New Year's gift to the owners of the Indian tankers.