Lahore, Oct 28 : Sacked Pakistani cricket coach Geoff Lawson has said that if (Pakistan) captain Shoaib Malik gets some experience, he could turn out to be a good captain for his national team.

“If Malik gets some experience, he could prove to be a good captain,” the Daily Times quoted Lawson as telling reporters at the Gaddafi Stadium last evening.

Malik was appointed captain after Pakistan made a first round exit from the World Cup in the West Indies last year.

London, Oct 28 : Here’s some good news for couples with a rocky bedroom life, scientists have created a new sex drug that works even faster than the commonly used Viagra.

Avanafil, dubbed as the “son of Viagra”, starts working within 15 minutes instead of 30.

Unlike Viagra that takes minimum eight hours to wear off, the new drug takes just an hour and a half.

“It’s less likely to cause classic Viagra headaches and similar disturbances,” The Sun quoted Prof Francesco Sasso as saying.

Sasso said that Avanafil could be used by even by men on drugs for heart problems.

Beijing/Khartoum - Five Chinese oil workers kidnapped in Sudan have been slain by their abductors, the Chinese embassy in Khartoum said.

Sudanese authorities told the embassy Monday that five of nine Chinese workers abducted on October 19 were killed, China's official Xinhua news agency reported.

Two more of the abducted workers were missing, and two escaped, the Sudanese government said.

The Sudan Tribune, quoting Foreign Ministry officials, said the bodies and the two escaped workers, who were injured, were found in a small village in the Kordofan area.

The embassy "strongly condemned" slayings and asked Khartoum to continue search operations for the two missing workers.

Washington, October 28 : Scientists at The Scripps Research have identified an antibody that works against the gastric hormone ghrelin, which has been linked to weight gain and fat storage through its metabolic actions.

Research leaders Kim Janda and Eric P. Zorrilla say that their findings point towards a potentially novel treatment for obesity that would interfere directly with the some of the biological mechanisms determining weight.

Dhaka  - Cyclone Rashmi killed at least 11 people in Bangladesh when it made landfall in the country's south-western region, media reports said Tuesday.

The tropical cyclone with wind speeds between 60 and 80 kilometres per hour ripped through nine coastal districts, an official at the disaster management ministry said.

District administrations in the coastal areas confirmed at least 11 deaths and reported that some fishermen remained missing in the Bay of Bengal.

Standing crops were affected in low-lying areas of coastal districts inundated by water surging up to two metres higher than normal tides, The Daily Star reported, quoting officials at the Agriculture Extension Division.

Wellington  - Axa New Zealand Ltd said Tuesday that it had frozen three managed mortgage funds worth a total of 225 million New Zealand dollars (121.5 million US dollars) to head off a feared run of withdrawals from 5,000 investors.

Ralph Stewart, chief executive of the insurance and investment management firm, said withdrawals from the Mortgage Distribution Fund, Mortgage Investment Fund and Axa Investment Portfolio had been suspended for 30 days.

New investments in the funds have also been suspended although investors would receive scheduled interest payments as usual, the firm said.