HONG KONG - A BRITISH photographer said on Sunday that the wife of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe punched him repeatedly in the face after he tried to take pictures of her near a luxury hotel in Hong Kong.

Mr Richard Jones told The Associated Press that Mrs Grace Mugabe, 43, ordered a bodyguard to hold him down and then attacked him herself on Thursday near the Shangri-La hotel on Hong Kong's Kowloon peninsula.

JERUSALEM - THE Israeli military carried out an air strike against a rocket launching squad in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday in the first such incident following a unilateral truce, the army said.

NEW YORK - SALVAGE teams have lifted the sunken Airbus jet that crashed into New York's Hudson River apparently after hitting a flock of birds following take-off.

The operation to lift the US Airways plane was hampered by swirling river currents and icy waters, but finally was completed during the night of Saturday to Sunday.