Munich - An avalanche Saturday on the German side of Alps swept away five men using snowboards, killing one of them, police said.

The mass of snow came off the side of the Wallberg, a mountain in the Tegernsee alpine holiday region south of Munich, at about mid-day as the men were making downhill runs in an area not marked out as ski lane.

New Delhi  - Indian police detained up to 600 right-wing Hindu activists on Saturday, following sporadic protests and harassment against young couples celebrating Valentine's Day, news reports said.

Members of the hardline Shiv-Sena group, blackened the faces of couples at a park at the Moradabad city in northern Uttar Pradesh, the NDTV network reported.

They also attacked three couples and cut their hair at India's famous monument to love, the Taj Mahal in the state's Agra city.

London  - A British Airway passenger plane crash landed at London City Airport on Friday evening, with all 71 on board the flight from Amsterdam surviving the ordeal.

Two people were slightly injured, the airline said.

It is believed the plane's front landing gear were not working properly, and witnesses told the BBC that a front wheel broke off during touch down.

An airline spokeswoman said the plane came to a stop on the runway and the passengers of flight 8456 exited the craft on the emergency escape slides.

Abu Dhabi  - A cargo ship and its crew have been reported missing off the Abu Dhabi coastline, officials said on Friday.

"We lost contact with the ship two days ago," said Muhair Ali al- Khatri, director general of the Critical National Infrastructure Authority (CNIA).

The unnamed vessel, which was carrying cars and trucks, went missing between Jebel Dhanna and al-Qarnain island, which lies 180 kilometres north-west of Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates.

Al-Khatri was quoted by the official WAM news agency as saying that CNIA dispatched six rescue boats and two helicopters to search for the vessel, which had nine people onboard.

New Delhi  - At least 15 people were killed and 100 wounded when a passenger train derailed in India's eastern state of Orissa on Friday, officials said.

Fourteen coaches of the Coromandel Express overturned in the Jajpur area, situated some 120 kilometres north of the state capital of Bhubaneshwar on Friday evening.

"Fifteen bodies were brought to the local state-run hospital," Indian Railways spokesman JP Mishra said. "We do not know what caused the accident," he added.

Zurich - The mystery of a Brazilian woman who claimed she was attacked by three skinheads in Zurich earlier this week deepened Friday as new details emerged that cast some doubts on her story.

Police responded to a train station in the major Swiss city on Monday after reports that a pregnant woman was attacked with a knife during a racially motivated crime. The
26-year-old Brazilian, who said she was three months pregnant at the time of the attack, said she went into a bathroom afterward and miscarried.

However, the Institute of Forensic Medicine determined Friday that she was not pregnant at the time of the attack. Police also said the wounds on her body could have been self-inflicted.