London, Mar 10: As video piracy continues to plague the film industry, scientists have now developed a new audio trick that can allow authorities to keep a check on video pirates that make illegal camcorder copies in cinema halls.

Digital watermarks built into movies now make it possible to identify the seat a video pirate was sitting in when they made an illegal camcorder copy.

The audio watermarks can identify how far the pirate is from the cinema''s speakers, and can even locate the seat on which he or she is sitting.

Mexic

Zamboanga City, Philippines  - Police recovered six homemade bombs placed in different areas in a southern Philippine city, a police official said Tuesday.

The improvised explosive devices were defused after they were recovered Monday in Zamboanga City, 875 kilometres south of Manila, according to city police chief Senior Superintendent Mario Yanga.

Yanga said two bombs were recovered outside the residence of Congressman Mujiv Hataman while four more bombs were recovered near his office.

Tegucigalpa, Honduras  - Narcotics officers in Honduras seized a ship loaded with 2 tons of cocaine on the Central American country's largest lagoon.

Seven men were arrested Monday when a navy speed boat stopped the vessel on the Caratasca Lagoon in north-eastern Honduras, 500 kilometres north-east of the capital, Tegucigalpa, the Honduran Navy said.

Honduran authorities estimated that drug traffickers transport about 60 tons of cocaine every year by sea and plane through the remote jungles on the border with Nicaragua.

Cotabato City, Philippines  - A leftist activist was killed by unidentified gunmen in a southern Philippine city, a police report said Tuesday.

Eleazar Billanes, a spokesman for the leftist South Cotabato People's Alliance, was shot on Monday by motorcycle-riding gunmen in Koronadal City in South Cotabato province, 960 kilometres south of Manila.

He received several gunshot wounds and was killed instantly as he walked home from a public market, the report said.

Kabul  - It was around 6 pm when hospital director Muhammed Hashim Wahaaj left his office in downtown Kabul to go home.

A car followed his vehicle. Wahaaj stopped to let the car pass.

As the car pulled up, a shot rang out, and the bullet hit the 47-year-old in his upper arm.

Three or four men, Wahaaj said, emerged from the car, blindfolded him and tied him up, forced him into the vehicle and had him crouch on the floor.

This event began a painful ordeal of torture and a fear of death for the doctor.