Washington  - The captain of the US-operated cargo ship that was hijacked off the coast of Somalia on Wednesday has been taken hostage, a crew member confirmed.

Captain Joseph Murphy was being held by the pirates on the ship's lifeboat and was alive, second mate Ken Quinn told broadcaster CNN.

He also said that the crew was in control of the ship and was waiting for additional support from a US Naval destroyer, which was about three hours away.

Straubing, Germany  - A convicted sex killer took a prison's chief psychologist hostage in Germany and allegedly repeatedly raped her before surrendering to police early Wednesday, Bavarian officials said.

The state's justice minister, Beate Merk, said police were still investigating how the 51-year-old prisoner, who had faced his first sex charges at the age of 13, had obtained a knife and managed to tie up the woman in her office Tuesday evening.

He surrendered several hours later after armed police had surrounded the prison at Straubing, near Munich.

Geneva  - A water technician for the International Committee of the Red Cross was killed in shelling Wednesday morning while trying to fetch water for his family in coastal belt held by the Tamil Tiger rebels.

Paul Castella, the head of the ICRC delegation in Colombo, said he was "devastated" by the death of Sinnathurai Kugathasan who was married with three children.

It was unclear whether government forces or rebels fired the shell.

Islamabad  - A suspected US missile strike killed four Taliban militants Wednesday in Pakistan's tribal region near the Afghan border, an intelligence official said.

Two back-to-back missiles fired by a pilotless drone aircraft hit a vehicle in Ganjikhel area of South Waziristan tribal district, a stronghold of Taliban and al-Qaeda militants lunching cross-border attacks on US-led international forces in Afghanistan.

Windhoek  - A leading rights group has welcomed a proposal by Namibia's opposition for a South Africa-style truth commission to examine past human rights violations to further national healing.

The Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), which was formed in 2007 by breakaway members of the ruling party SWAPO, has vowed to establish a truth commission if voted into power in elections later this year.

Prague  - Two Czech teenagers were identified Tuesday among the victims of the powerful earthquake that struck central Italy, Czech officials said.

The dead were two 17-year-old students, a boy and a girl, from the eastern Bohemian town of Pardubice who were in Italy on a short-term study programme, the Czech Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Their remains were found in the rubble of the building where they were staying, the ministry said.