In Short

Today's other world news stories in brief.

Today's other world news stories in brief.

Siblings found in father's dungeon

HEBRON - A Palestinian man imprisoned his two mentally ill children for more than 20 years in a dungeon he dug under his house because he was ashamed of them, Palestinian police said yesterday.

Police officers found the brother and his sister, in their 30s, in an unlit and unventilated dungeon during a raid against arms and drug dealers in the West Bank village of Beit Awa. The father said he imprisoned them because he did not want people to laugh at him for bringing "abnormal children to this world". - (Reuters)

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Air strikes killed  60 children - UN

Sixty children were killed in air strikes by US-led coalition warplanes in western Afghanistan last week, a UN investigation has found. UN investigators said they discovered "convincing evidence" that a total of 90 civilians died in the incident.

The toll, potentially the worst since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, could wreck relations between the government and the Nato-led forces, which were under severe strain over civilian casualties and strategy in the counter-insurgency against the Taliban. - (Guardian service)

Hijacked Sudanese plane with 87 passengers forced to land in Libya

TRIPOLI - A Sudanese passenger plane was hijacked yesterday after leaving war-torn Darfur and has been forced to land in Libya, Sudanese and Libyan authorities said.

Libya's Civil Aviation Authority said 95 passengers were on the Boeing 737/200 aircraft which landed at Kufrah, an oasis town in the countrys southeast, Libyas state news agency Jana reported.

"The authority had granted permission to the plane to land at the aiport out of humanitarian concern after the pilot told the authorities that the plane had ran out of fuel," it said.

Three senior members of a former Darfur rebel movement which has signed a peace accord with the government were among the passengers, a spokesman for the group said. Members of the Darfur regional government were also aboard, Egyptian state news agency Mena said.

The plane, belonging to Khartoum-based private airline Sunair, had just left from the South Darfur capital bound for Khartoum. Mena reported that four men had seized the aircraft. - (Reuters)