The World Health Organisation's 193 member states yesterday overcame their deep divisions over intellectual property rules and endorsed a strategy to help improve developing-country access to drugs and medical tests.

At the UN agency's annual policy-setting meeting in Geneva, governments also called for WHO Director-General Margaret Chan to finalise a plan of action boosting incentives for drugmakers to tackle diseases that afflict the poor.

"The WHO has taken a big step forward to change the way we think about innovation and access to medicines," said James Love of the advocacy group Knowledge Ecology International.

"In a lengthy and substantive document, the World Health Assembly has reached consensus on a plethora of difficult and important topics, sometimes with impressive detail and clarity, on topics that were considered controversial only a short time ago," Love said.

Some issues, including how new incentives would be financed, were not resolved in the intense negotiations capping the week-long World Health Assembly summit, which also analysed international responses to infectious and chronic diseases, climate change, and counterfeit drugs.

Art records tumble at Christie's sale

A work by Chinese artist Zeng Fanzhi sold for $9.5 million yesterday, a new auction record for an Asian contemporary artwork, at auctioneer Christie's first evening sale of such art in Hong Kong.

Other records also fell as the auction brought a dash of black-tie glamour to the former British colony's art market, considered the world's third most important auction hub after New York and London.

Affluent Asian collectors in suits and evening dresses were served champagne and canapés before bidding in a packed auction hall. The results suggested the Chinese art market remains resilient despite financial market jitters and lingering fallout from the subprime crisis.

Fanzhi's large-scale 2-by-3.6 metre work entitled Mask Series 1996 No. 6, sold for almost triple its pre-sale estimate. Several telephone bidders helped push the price to HK$75.37 million including the buyer's premium, making it the most expensive Asian contemporary artwork sold at auction, Christie's said.

Mum puts baby on eBay

German police are investigating a couple after they offered their eight-month-old son for sale on internet auction site eBay.

Renée Beck, a police spokesman in the Bavarian town of Krumbach west of Munich, said yesterday the 23-year-old woman told them it was only a joke. But he said police were nevertheless continuing their investigation and the baby was put in state custody.

"She says it was a joke," he said. "That's not yet clear. Detectives are investigating on suspicion of child trafficking."

A number of people called authorities across Germany after seeing the offer on eBay that read: 'Baby - collection only. Offer my nearly new baby for sale because it cries too much. Male, 70 cm long.'

The opening bid was one euro. There were no bidders during the two hours before the offer was removed, police said.

Teenager stabbed to death in UK

A teenager was stabbed to death during a fight involving at least four people early yesterday in Kent.

The 19-year-old was fatally wounded in the altercation in Sidcup, Scotland Yard said.

Two men aged 21 and a 16-year-old boy are being treated in hospital. One of the men and the teenager suffered stab wounds, while the other man sustained a facial injury.

One man has been arrested on suspicion of murder.

Knife crime has blighted London in recent months.

China's Catholics visit shrine

Bells clanged, children played and police kept watch as pilgrims clutching rosary beads flocked to one of China's most revered Catholic shrines yesterday, the day Pope Benedict XVI designated World Day of Prayer for China.

"There are fewer people than last year," said a 30-year-old seminary student surnamed Wu as he welcomed worshippers into the 150-year-old Sheshan Cathedral.

May is the month Chinese Catholics celebrate the Virgin Mary, and it is the peak season for the country's faithful to visit Sheshan.

But the authorities restricted attendence this year, fearing social unrest after March's protests in Tibet and ahead of Beijing's August Olympic games, Catholic media reports said.

Tensions were heightened this year after Benedict penned a prayer that asks Chinese be allowed to freely express their faith and allegiance to him in their officially atheist country.

20 hours drifting off Australia

Two scuba divers, a British man and an American woman, were rescued yesterday after drifting for 20 hours off Australia's Great Barrier Reef after they became separated from their dive party. A rescue helicopter spotted the divers drifting about 12.5 km northwest of Bait Reef, winched them aboard and flew them to a nearby resort island, police said.

Police said the divers survived because they made sensible decisions and remained calm while floatng in the ocean overnight.

"The divers made some very good decisions throughout the evening," police superintendent Shane Chelepyhe said.

"My information from talking to them is they strapped themselves together using their weight belts, they conserved energy, stayed as a pair and awaited rescue."

The two, part of a party of six divers on a charter boat, became separated and failed to resurface as scheduled when diving in a small inlet called Gary's Lagoon.