Madrid  - The Spanish frigate Numancia intercepted and arrested nine alleged pirates suspected of attacking the Italian cruise ship MS Melody, media reports said.

A French and an Indian warship, as well as a helicopter and two surveillance planes also participated in the operation, which took place Sunday north of the Seychelles.

The alleged pirates were detected near the position were the attack on the MS Melody took place late Saturday. The attackers abandoned one of their two boats, which was found by the Indian warship Nirdeshak.

Kuala Lumpur, Apr 27: A 15-year-old Malay girl, who is seven months’ pregnant, has claimed that her father and his friend have raped her for three years.

The secondary school student, who lives with her parents, confessed to her aunt about it and she in turn took the young girl to the Skudai police station to lodge a report.

Melbourne, Apr 27 : There has been a drastic increase in the number of sex crimes Down Under, according to a new report.

The recent police figures on pub and club offences have revealed that there were 61 sexual attacks in Victorian licensed premises last financial year including 22 rapes and 39 sexual assaults.

According to the police and rape support groups, drunk and drug-affected women in bars were easy targets of sex predators.

Most rapes took place in toilets, private rooms, alcoves and offices and sexual assaults happened anywhere from beer gardens to dance floors.

Olpe, Germany  - Three young children - abandoned in an Italian pizzeria after their mother and her companion ran out of cash - arrived home Friday in Germany, where they have been made wards of court, authorities in the district of Olpe said.

Two child protection officials from Olpe, east of Cologne, had travelled the day before to Aosta in Italy to pick them up.

Prague  - Czech police reported Friday detaining David Duke, former leader of US extremist group the Ku Klux Klan, on suspicion of denying the Holocaust in a book.

Duke arrived in Prague earlier this week at the invitation of local neo-Nazis to publicize the Czech translation of of 1998 memoir My Awakening.

Police have charged him with denying in the book that the systematic mass murder of Jews and other ethnic groups by Nazi Germany during World War II ever took place, a hate crime in the Czech Republic punishable by up to three years in prison, police spokesman Jan Mikulovsky told the German Press Agency dpa.

Sydney - Austra