Hong Kong  - A man who strangled a woman and later told her family to pay a ransom for her safe return has been jailed for life after being found guilty of murder, a media report said Tuesday.

A judge sentenced So Kam-tong, 25, to life in prison for murdering Yau Hiu-yin, 21, after a jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict, the South China Morning Post said.

So also received a concurrent jail sentence of five years and four months after pleading guilty to blackmailing Yau's family.

The judge described the blackmail as cruel since So knew the woman was dead.

Sydney  - Canberra police stand guard as a motorcade sweeps along closed roads in a blaze of black metal and shiny chrome.

It's not a visiting head of state going by but the bullet-holed body of slain motorcycle gang leader Richard Roberts.

Australia's motorcycle gangs are at war and police in the national capital are out in the streets making sure vengeance is left to another day.

Riga - Latvia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Monday that it was investigating claims that it had fallen victim to a Chinese-based cyber-spying operation.

"There are threats at all times which we monitor and work to avoid," a ministry spokesman told the German press service dpa.

A co-cordinated cyber-spying operation, dubbed "GhostNet" by Canadian researchers who exposed the hi-tech spy ring, infected two computers belonging to the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to a new report.

Lucknow, Mar 30: Underworld don Abu Salem will be produced in the special CBI court of Special Judicial Magistrate Saif Ahmad here today in connection with the 1993 fake passport case.

On March 17, the court set March 30 as the next date of the hearing.

Earlier, the Central bureau of Investigation (CBI) had issued a production warrant against Salem in the 15-year-old case.

Salem, his wife Damira Zumani and others are alleged for procuring passports on the basis of fake documents from the regional passport office at Lucknow.

New York/Toronto  - A spying operation that infiltrated computers - many of them belonging to governments - in 103 countries has been uncovered by a group of Canadian researchers, the New York Times reported Sunday.

Victims of the malicious software, or malware, include computers in: the offices of the Dalai Lama; Tibetan exile centres around the world; NATO headquarters in Brussels; and the Indian embassy to the United States.

In all, 1,295 computers might have been accessed and had documents copied by the system, which the researchers dubbed GhostNet.

Hong Kong  - Three teenagers were arrested after a 13-year-old boy was injured when a homemade bomb exploded, a media report said Sunday.

The three, including the injured boy, were held by police for possessing explosives favoured by Islamic terrorists, the South China Morning Post said.

Police suspect the classmates of a Kowloon Tong district school learned how to make the explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP) powder on the internet.