Wellington  - New Zealand Customs officers seized drugs worth millions of dollars on the illegal street market when they arrested three travellers from Hong Kong as they flew into Auckland over the weekend, a spokesman said Wednesday.

The three were carrying more than 15 kilograms of Contact NT, a pseudoephedrine-based cold remedy used to make methamphetamines, known as crystal ice or P, a spokesman said.

Hong Kong  - An illegal immigrant has died in hospital after being shot in the head at close range by a police officer in Hong Kong, police said Wednesday.

The unidentified man was shot on Tuesday as he attacked the constable in a city park with a wooden chair, after being challenged to produce his identity papers.

The officer, who had been called to the scene after complaints about the man from residents, used pepper spray and shouted warnings before opening fire on his attacker, police said.

Hanoi - Vietnamese police said Tuesday the driver of a tour bus that plunged into a ravine on Friday, killing 9 Russians and one Vietnamese, will face up to 15 years in jail for speeding.

"The bus driver will be prosecuted for driving very carelessly and exceeding the speed limit," said Lt Col Nguyen Dac Minh, head of the Binh Thuan Provincial Police's Department of Social Order Crime Investigations.

Minh said the driver, who was severely injured in the accident, had blamed a brake malfunction, but investigators found the bus's brakes in working order.

He said skid marks on the road from the driver's attempt to brake showed the bus had been traveling over the speed limit.

Kuala Lumpur  - Malaysian customs police foiled an attempt to smuggle in 4 million ringgit (1.1 million dollars) of the psychotropic drug nimetazepam, better known as Eramin 5, at the cargo area of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, news reports said Tuesday.

Customs officers had become suspicious when a shipment of 10 computer central processing units, or CPUs, arrived from Taiwan weighing 148 kilograms, when the weight of a single unit is normally less than 5 kilograms, said department director general Mohamed Khalid Yusof.

Taipei  - Taiwan police have arrested a funeral parlour worker who stole cash and jewelry from a dead American, a newspaper said Tuesday.

Chen Chien-feng was arrested Monday for stealing 3,700 Taiwan dollars (100 US dollars) and jewelry from the home of Sandy Richard Puckett, a 60-year-old teacher at the Taipei American School, while removing Puckett's body Monday morning, the China Times said.

Paris  - A large gang of youths armed with buckshot and stones left a number of police officers lightly injured overnight in a Parisian suburb, a police spokesman said Sunday.

About 100 young people were involved in the violence, the spokesman told French radio, adding that eight were arrested.

The number of policemen hurt were originally reported as 21, but later reduced to 10.

According to early reports, the rioting began when police responding to a call concerning a burning car were "ambushed" by an waiting band of youths in the Les Mureaux suburb. A number of homemade incendiary devices were also discovered at the scene.