Nairobi - The world's long-term neglect of conflict-stricken Somalia has created the current boom in piracy in the Gulf of Aden, diplomats and UN officials said Wednesday as the second day of an international conference on piracy began in Nairobi.

"The Somali leadership ... and the international community have neglected Somalia," UN Special Representative for Somalia Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah said. "Piracy is one of the most important consequences of this neglect."

Over 140 delegates from 45 countries - including ambassadors, ministers and technical experts - have gathered in the Kenyan capital to look at how to increase cooperation in fighting Somali pirates, in particular the thorny legal aspects of the issue.

Hong Kong - An animal-obsessed Hong Kong teenager was Thursday beginning a life jail sentence for murdering a female kennel worker he believed was mistreating dogs.

London, Dec 10: A husband has been sentenced to three and a half years of jail for using his semi-naked wife for target practice with an air rifle.

Vedran Ribaric, from Zapresic in Croatia forced wife Mirna to strip to her knickers and run round her garden while he took pot shots at her for target practice with an air rifle

Ribaric had ever been forcing his 23-year-old wife to pose provocatively while he took aim.

Manila - Seventeen people, including a 7-year-old girl, were killed in a running gunbattle between police officers and suspected robbers in the Philippine capital, a police report said Saturday.

QUEANBEYAN, Australia, Dec. 5 -- An Australian woman and her grown son and daughter were charged Friday with the killing of a bartender whose body was found in a New South Wales river in March.

Ben Beaudean, 25, of Queanbeyan was charged with the murder of Danny Ralph, The Canberra Times reported. His mother, Cody, and his pregnant sister, Taneeka, were charged as accessories after the fact.

Ralph, 46, a father of five, had been living in Queanbeyan in New South Wales since the mid 1990s. He worked at the Royal Hotel and was known to hang out at other bars in town.

DOYLESTOWN, Pa., Dec. 5 -- A Philadelphia-area woman was sentenced to life in prison Friday for shooting another parishioner because she was jealous of the woman.

Mary Jane Fonder, 66, once again denied killing Rhonda Smith, 39, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. She denied resenting the attention that Smith was getting.

"I'm sorry, so very sorry this poor woman was murdered," Fonder told Judge Rea Boylan. "But in the name of God ... I did not kill Rhonda Smith."

Smith was shot in the office of Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, where she was working. Fonder was convicted of first-degree murder Oct. 31 and faced an automatic life sentence with no parole.