Brazil teen loses right hand in shark attack

A shark ripped off the right hand of a teenager swimming along the coast of northeastern Brazil, fire department officials said Monday.

Pernambuco state fire department spokesman Marcio Maia said 14-year-old Wellington dos Santos was attacked on Sunday after he swam beyond a coral reef that keeps sharks away from the beach of Piedade near the state capital, Recife.

Lifeguards rescued dos Santos and rushed him to a hospital, where he was reported to be in critical but stable condition, Maia said.

Besides severing dos Santos' hand, the shark "bit off a large chunk of his buttocks," Maia said.

"People insist on ignoring the sign posts warning of the danger of shark attacks, especially beyond the coral reefs about 150 meters (490 feet) from the beach," Maia said.

The attack was the 51st since authorities started keeping count of shark attacks in the area in 1992. Maia said sharks have killed 19 people in Pernambuco state over the past 15 years.

Canadian couple arrested for selling baby on internet

A couple has been arrested after allegedly offering to sell a seven-day-old baby girl on the internet for 10,000 Canadian dollars (10,000 U.S. dollars), Canadian police said Tuesday.

Police in the western coast city of Vancouver were tipped off Friday by a woman who phoned to complain about the ad on the Craigslist website, which described the baby as "very cute," and said it was looking for a good home.

Through the cell phone number posted on the website, police eventually found the baby in a Vancouver West End apartment, which was occupied by four adults including a 23-year-old mother who was breastfeeding the infant when police arrived.

The mother and a 26-year-old man were arrested and initially charged with public mischief. But the couple were later released and the charges have since been dropped for lack of evidence.

The man and woman claimed that the ad was a hoax. Meanwhile, the baby has been taken into care by the provincial Ministry of Children and Family Development.

"In my 27 years in policing, this is something I thought I would never see," Vancouver Police Dept. Const. Tim Fanning told reporters at a briefing Tuesday morning.

Swedish woman married to Berlin Wall for 29 years

A Swedish woman with a passion for inanimate objects revealed that she has been married to the Berlin Wall for 29 years.

Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer, 54, whose surname means Berlin Wall in German, said she fell in love with the Berlin Wall in childhood, when she saw "his" pictures on TV.

She began collecting "his" pictures and saving up for visits. On her sixth trip in 1979 they tied the knot before a handful of guests.

She claimed that the Great Wall of China's attractive, but it's too thick and her "husband" is sexier.

While she remains a virgin with humans, she insists she had a full, loving relationship with the wall.

"It's not just pleasuring myself. I want to please my partner when we make love."

While the rest of mankind rejoiced when the Berlin Wall was largely torn down in 1989, its "wife" was horrified.

She's never been back and now has only model to remind her of "his" former glory.

"We all have to live on this earth and the only way to peace, friendship and freedom is accepting and respecting even if one doesn't understand. As long as nobody is injured all is well," said Berliner-Mauer.

California's gays may marry as early as June 14

The California Supreme Court's ruling will give gays and lesbians a right to marry as soon as June 14, the president of the California's county clerks association said Monday.

"They are shooting for the 14th," said Stephen Weir, who heads the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, adding that the state planned to give California's 58 counties advice early this week for implementing the historic change so local officials can start planning.

The issue of same-sex marriage already has burned out in more than half the states in the U.S.

In 2004, Massachusetts' first-in-the-nation decision legalizing gay marriage sparked a political backlash that resulted in voter-approved constitutional bans on same-sex weddings in 23 states. Four states already had constitutional bans.

After Massachusetts issued the first marriage licenses to same-sex couples, voters in 13 states in 2004 rushed to rewrite their constitutions to limit marriage to heterosexuals. Two more states passed constitutional bans on gay marriage in 2005 and eight more in 2006. Arizona in 2006 became the first and only state so far to reject a ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage.

Only three states have no laws either condoning or prohibiting same-sex marriage: New Mexico, New York and Rhode Island.

"While the California ruling is very significant, a lot of states have already taken action on this," said Christine Nelson, an analyst who tracks the issue for the National Conference of State Legislatures in Denver.

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Man admits having sex with 1,000 cars

A man who claims to have had sex with 1,000 cars has defended his "romantic" feelings towards vehicles.

Edward Smith with one of his former partners

Edward Smith, who lives with his current "girlfriend" – a white Volkswagen Beetle named Vanilla, insisted that he was not "sick" and had no desire to change his ways.

"I appreciate beauty and I go a little bit beyond appreciating the beauty of a car only to the point of what I feel is an expression of love," he said.

"Maybe I'm a little bit off the wall but when I see movies like Herbie and Knight Rider, where cars become loveable, huggable characters it's just wonderful.

"I'm a romantic. I write poetry about cars, I sing to them and talk to them just like a girlfriend. I know what's in my heart and I have no desire to change."

He added: "I'm not sick and I don't want to hurt anyone, cars are just my preference."

Mr Smith, 57, first had sex with a car at the age of 15, and claims he has never been attracted to women or men.

But his wandering eye has spread beyond cars to other vehicles. He says that his most intense sexual experience was "making love" to the helicopter from 1980s TV hit Airwolf.

As well as Vanilla, he regularly spends time with his other vehicles – a 1973 Opal GT, named Cinnamon, and 1993 Ford Ranger Splash, named Ginger.

Before Vanilla, he had a five-year relationship with Victoria, a 1969 VW Beetle he bought from a family of Jehovah's Witnesses.

But he confesses that many of the cars he has had sex with have belonged to strangers or car showrooms.

His last relationship with a woman was 12 years ago - and he could not bring himself to consummate it, although he did have sex with girls in his younger days.

Mr Smith, from Washington state in the US, kept quiet about his secret fetish for years, but agreed to be interviewed as part of a channel Five documentary into “mechaphilia”. He is shown meeting other enthusiasts at a rally in California

Talking about how his unusual passion developed, Mr Smith said: "It's something that grew as a part of me when I was a kid and I could not shake it.

"I just loved cute cars right from the beginning, but over the years it got stronger once I got into my teenage years and was my first having sexual urges.

"When I turned 13 and the famous Corvette Stingray came about, that car was pure sex and just an incredible machine. I wanted it.

"I didn't fully understand it myself except that I know I'm not hurting anyone and I do not intend to."

He added: "There are moments way out in the middle of nowhere when I see a little car parked and I swear it needs loving.

"There have been certain cars that attracted me and I would wait until night time, creep up to them and just hug and kiss them.

"As far as women go, they never really interested me much. And I'm not gay.”

Mr Smith is now part of a global community of more than 500 “car lovers” brought together by internet forums.

• My Car Is My Lover is on Five on Wednesday, May 28.

FBI: author of hate letters lost lover to black man

A man who wrote hundreds of hateful letters to black and mixed-race men seen with white women apparently was motivated by a girlfriend who left him for a black man, the FBI said Friday.

David Tuason, who is of Filipino descent, admitted his motive when he was captured two months ago, said Frank Figliuzzi, the head of the FBI in Cleveland.

"One of the first phrases out of his mouth was, 'You wouldn't understand 'til it happened to you,' and when they inquired what that meant, he said, 'My girlfriend left me for a black man,'" Figliuzzi said.

The FBI was surprised that a jilted man was behind the hundreds of letters that went to, among others, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter.

In many of the letters sent over 20 years, he posed as an angry white woman threatening violent acts such as castration or explosions in buildings.

FBI agents arrested Tuason on March 14 after tracking e-mails sent from a public library. The agency's behavioral experts had developed several theories about the letter writer, but a jilted lover wasn't in the mix, Figliuzzi said.

"It's a lesson in considering the obvious," he said. "You can overcomplicate profiles and assessments and when you arrest the guy, he says, 'My girlfriend left me for a black man.'"

Tuason, 46, pleaded guilty Thursday to six counts of mailing threatening communications and two counts of threatening interstate communications. He could receive up to 10 years in prison for writing a threatening letter to a Supreme Court justice and five years on each of the other charges.

Mexico transgender couple ties the knot

Mario and Diana, a transgender couple, pose for a picture after getting married in a public ceremony in Mexico City May 17, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

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A couple who both changed their sex married on Saturday in Mexico's first transgender wedding, as the traditionally conservative country loses some of its inhibitions.

Mario del Socorro, formerly Maria, and Diana Guerrero, who used to be Jose, held an austere ceremony for friends and relatives in a community center.

The couple said they hoped media coverage would pressure Mexico's Congress to pass a proposed law that would let people get sex change operations in public hospitals and then be able to change their names and genders in public records.

1840 in Austria pose for nude picture

Over 1,800 men and women posed nude for a U.S. photographer in Austria's Ernst Happel stadium on Sunday. (Photo: Agencies)

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Over 1,800 men and women posed nude for a U.S. photographer in Austria's Ernst Happel stadium on Sunday.

Spencer Tunick, notorious for his works featuring hundreds of naked people at unusual venues, requested his 1,840 participants to wear no sunglasses, no smiling, and no underwear.

The participants were not paid, but were promised to receive signed pictures of the photo-shoot.

The stadium will host seven of the Euro 2008 soccer championship matches being staged by Austria and Switzerland, including the June 29 final.

New York-born Tunick described Sunday's shooting on his website as combining "the spirit of sports, the grand sweeping waves of stadium architecture and the abstract relation of the human form to modern structures."

The number of participants still fell short of the symbolic "at least 2,008" Tunick had hoped to get, ahead of the Euro 2008 tournament.

Tunick had created several installations of large-scale nude projects from Mexico City to the Netherlands, Barcelona and Newcastle.

UK girl, 18, has had three hearts

Leanne Nicholson (File Photo)
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An 18-year-old British girl has had no fewer than three hearts -- the one she was born with and the other two transplanted hearts, media reported Monday.

Leanne Nicholson, a medical miracle, and lucky to be alive, is recovering at her home in Choppington, in Northumberland, from her second heart transplant three months ago.

Until the age of 12, Leanne was a normal and healthy child. But in April 2002 a virus -- unnamed and unknown -- swept through her body, attacking the muscle tissue of her heart.

She was diagnosed with severe cardiomyopathy, literally "heart muscle disease."

Her heart was so damaged by the virus that the doctors said it was as though she'd suffered three major heart attacks.

The first transplanted heart came from a young woman who had died of a head injury. And the transplant was, to everyone's huge relief, a success in 2002.

But after just 14 months, Leanne went into chronic rejection. Her body began to recognize the heart as an alien tissue and started to attack it so powerfully that even the strongest immuno-suppressive drugs did not work.

Surgeons attempted to fit Leanne with a pacemaker to regulate her heartbeat and help it keep a regular rhythm. But the operation was not a success because the heart was so weak, so in 2003 Leanne was once again rushed to intensive care with heart failure.

"To receive a second heart transplant is a million-to-one chance as there is such a shortage of donor organs," says Leanne.

In January this year, shortly after she spent her 18th birthday, Leanne again went into complete heart failure.

Her parents were told that a transplant was the only option. Without it she had at best just 30 days to live.

Doctors told them to say goodbye to Leanne, who by then was on life support, unconscious and with pipes, drains and wires all over her.

She was lucky enough that after three days of fighting for life, a heart was found, from a 35-year-old man from London who had died in a car accident.

Leanne is now making a steady recovery and said she had not felt so well in years.

The average survival rate for heart transplant patients is ten years, with many living for 20 years or more, and so her future is looking brighter than it has for a very long time.

Happy Mother's Day: Woman pregnant with 18th child

In this Aug. 2, 2007 file photo, Michelle Duggar (L) is surrounded by her children and husband Jim Bob (L-3) after the birth of her 17th child in Rogers, Ark. The Duggars announced on Friday, May 9, 2008 that they are expecting their 18th child. (Photo: chinadaily.com.cn/Agencies)

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BEIJING, May 11 -- It's a happy Mother's Day for an Arkansas woman -- she's pregnant with her 18th child. Michelle Duggar, 41, is due on New Year's Day, and the latest addition will join seven sisters and 10 brothers. There are two sets of twins.

"We've had three in January, three in December. Those two months are a busy time for us," she said, laughing.

The Duggars' oldest child, Josh, is 20, and the youngest, Jennifer, is nine months old.

The fast-growing family lives in Tontitown in northwest Arkansas in a 7,000-square-foot home. All the children -- whose names start with the letter J -- are home-schooled.

Duggar has been been pregnant for more than 11 years of her life, and the family is in the process of filming another series for "Discovery Health."

The new show looks at life inside the Duggar home, where chores -- or "jurisdictions" -- are assigned to each child. One episode of the new show involves a "jurisdiction swap," where the boys do chores traditionally assigned to the girls, and vice versa, Duggar said.

"The girls swapped jurisdictions, changing tires, working in the garages, mowing the grass," she said. "The boys got to cook supper from start to finish, clean the bathrooms," among other chores.

Duggar said she's six weeks along and the pregnancy is going well. She and her husband, Jim Bob Duggar, said they'll keep having children as long as God wills it.

"The success in a family is first off, a love for God, and secondly, treating each other like you want to be treated," Jim Bob Duggar said. "Our goal is for each one of our children to be best friends, and everybody working together to serve each other makes that happen."

The other Duggar children, in between Joshua and Jennifer, are Jana, 18; John-David, 18; Jill, 16; Jessa, 15; Jinger, 14; Joseph, 13; Josiah, 11; Joy-Anna, 10; Jeremiah, 9; Jedidiah, 9; Jason, 7; James, 6; Justin, 5; Jackson, 3; and Johannah, 2.

(Source: chinadaily.com.cn/Agencies)

Pope: Sex can become 'like a drug'

VATICAN CITY, Italy (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged Saturday that the Vatican's teaching against birth control was difficult as he praised a 1968 Church document that condemned contraception.Pope Benedict expressed concern that human life risks losing its value in today's culture.

In a speech marking the 40th anniversary of the document, Benedict reiterated the Church's ban against artificial birth control as well as more recent teaching against using artificial procreation methods.

Pope Paul VI's 1968 "Humanae vitae" ("On Human Life") encyclical prohibits Catholics from using artificial birth control.

"The teaching laid out in the 'Humanae vitae' encyclical isn't easy," Benedict said.

"What was true yesterday remains true even today. The truth expressed in 'Humanae vitae' doesn't change; on the contrary, in the light of new scientific discoveries, it is ever more up to date," the pope added.

Benedict appeared to be referring to artificial procreation methods, which in the Church's view offend the dignity of life and go against Vatican teaching that the only way to conceive a child is through intercourse between husband and wife

"No mechanical technique can substitute the act of love that two married people exchange as a sign of a greater mystery," Benedict said.

Benedict expressed concern that human life risks losing its value in today's culture and worried that sex could "transform itself into a drug" that one partner had to have even against the will of the other.

"What must be defended is not only the true concept of life but above all the dignity of the very person," the pope added.

Paul VI was said to have agonized over whether to allow artificial conception in preparing the encyclical. Benedict described Paul's decision as the fruit of much suffering and the document as "a significant gesture of courage."

"Forty years after its publication, that teaching not only shows itself to be unchanged in its truth, but it reveals the farsightedness with which the problem was tackled," the pope said.

British man changes sex, remarries wife

Emma Martin, who had a sex change, remarried his wife of 30 years after they tied the knot as man and wife, media reported Sunday.

The former Martin Packer and Linda Packer remarried in a civil ceremony to preserve the tax and pension rights they enjoyed as a married couple.

Parker Martin, now known as Emma Martin. Emma Martin, who had a sex change, remarried his wife of 30 years after they tied the knot as man and wife, media reported Sunday. (Photo: news.cn/Agencies)

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The couple from Little Downham, near Ely in Cambridgeshire, first married in 1977 and never had children.

The now 60-year-old IT consultant has had a problem with his gender since he was four. In 1998, he told his wife he wanted to change his sex.

Subsequently, around 20,000 pounds of treatments including electrolysis and hormone therapy were followed by gender reassignment surgery.

Under the Gender Recognition Act 2004, marriages in which one spouse has a sex change are not permitted to continue.

Consequently, they annulled their marriage so Emma would be legally recognized as a woman, but lost the same tax rights as married couples or those in civil partnerships.

Emma Martin, who had a sex change, remarried his wife of 30 years after they tied the knot as man and wife, media reported Sunday. (Photo: news.cn/Agencies)

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It left the pair facing large inheritance tax bills should one of them die and it also caused problems with life insurance and pensions rights.

So the "soulmates and best friends" decided to get remarried.

Calling Linda her soulmate, Emma explained "the simplest thing would have been if we could have had a transfer from a marriage to a civil partnership but that wasn't possible and it was such a farce to get all the paperwork sorted out.

The couple spoke out one year after their remarriage after Joyce and Sybil Burden, aged 90 and 82, lost their inheritance tax battle in the European Court of Human Rights.

The two sisters have lived together in Wiltshire all their lives and tried to get the same tax rights as married couples and civil partners.

Mother poisons 2 babies, commits suicide for dowry

A young Bangladeshi mother and her 45-day-old daughter died while her another minor daughter fell sick, as she took poison herself after feeding it to them, the leading newspaper The Independent reported Saturday.
The daily quoted the family members of the suicider Champa Begum as saying the reason behind the tragedy is dowry.
According to the family members, Champa married Nurul Islam eight years ago. Since then, Nurul had been torturing her, demanding dowry from Champa's father.
On Thursday evening, after being severely beaten up, Champa first fed her two little children pesticide and then she took it herself.
Demanding dowry from the bride's family is still very common in some rural areas in Bangladesh. Many wives are tortured even killed by husbands for not paying dowry in these areas.

Austria: girl raped, locked for 24 years by father

Austrian police on Sunday arrested a 73-year-old man accused of imprisoning his daughter in a windowless basement for 24 years, abusing her and fathering seven children with her, according to local police Monday.
The woman, identified as 42-year-old Elisabeth Fritzl, told investigators her father, Josef, put her to sleep with an anaesthetic on August 28, 1984, handcuffing her in a locked basement.
Officially, she was declared a missing person, with Interpol opening an investigation.
Elisabeth Fritzl told detectives she was "regularly abused" by her father. Elisabeth gave birth to seven children during her ordeal.
Josef's wife Rosemarie had been unaware of what happened to her daughter and it was assumed Elisabeth had disappeared voluntarily when her parents received a letter from her saying they should not search for her.
Miss F told police that she gave birth to twins in 1996, but one died days later because it was not properly cared for. Police said her father took the corpse and burned it.
Three of the younger children were brought up by Josef and his wife after they were left at the building, the first child accompanied by a note from Elisabeth saying she was unable to care for the baby herself.
Three others, including the two eldest aged 18 and 19, and the youngest, aged 5, had been locked up in the basement with their mother since birth.
The case only came to light when the oldest child became seriously ill and was taken to hospital in Amstetten. Josef said that child had also been left unconscious on his doorstep, according to media reports.
Authorities in Amstetten, 130 km (80 miles) west of Vienna, were still piecing together details of the case.
"We are faced with a crime that is incomprehensible," Interior Minister Guenther Platter said on Austrian television. "Everything that has happened here goes beyond one's imagination".
Rosemarie, as well as Elisabeth and her children were receiving psychological counselling. DNA samples of all those involved were taken and would be analysed, police said.

Congo cops arrest 13 alleged penis thieves

In an effort to avoid possible bloodshed, Congo police have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to shrink or steal men's penises.
The arrests came after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings prompted by the alleged witchcraft. A decade ago in Ghana, 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs.
"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Stories of so-called penis pilfering are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.
Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.
Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.
"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said. "But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it?'"

Actor Wesley Snipes sentenced to 3 years in prison

Actor Wesley Snipes pumps his fists to his fans while leaving the federal court house in Ocala, Florida April 24, 2008. Snipes was sentenced to three years in prison on Thursday for failing to file his federal income tax returns. The sentenced was the maximum under the law, which U.S. prosecutors had recommended for the star of the "Blade" movie series. He was found guilty in February of failing to file tax returns for 1999-2001. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)Photo Gallery>>>

Ralated:

Prosecutors: Wesley Snipes deserves 3 years in jail
BEIJING, April 16 (Xinhuanet) -- "Blade" star Wesley Snipes should serve a maximum three-years prison term and be fined 5 million U.S. dollars over tax evasion charges, U.S. prosecutors said.
In court papers filed on Monday but made public Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Robert O'Neill said Snipes deserved the harshest sentence due to years of "brazen defiance" and "insidious concealment." Full story

Canadian woman dies in crash with husband

A Canadian woman died after a car collision with her husband just minutes' drive from their home, local media reported Thursday.

The tragedy took place in Drummondville in the eastern province of Quebec Saturday evening. The 36-year-old man, Patrick Laflamme, plowed his truck into the van his 41-year-old wife was driving. Both were rushed to the hospital, where Renee Bourbeau died a few hours later.

Laflamme, who is still recovering from leg fractures and head lacerations, was charged in his hospital bed on Tuesday with drunk driving causing death, Canadian Press said.

Police said the couple had been at a local bar and Renee Bourbeau left without her husband. The accident happened when Laflamme was returning home.

The police alleged Laflamme was driving the wrong way into oncoming traffic and slammed into his wife's vehicle.

Detectives have decided it was not a premeditated act and the police are taking it as a traffic accident.

The couple, who manage a roofing business together, have enjoyed a happy relationship after their marriage two years ago, family members say.

Can tai chi raise milk yields?

Rob Taverner performs tai chi in front of his cows every morning because he believes it relaxes them and they produce more milk(Photo: news.cn) Photo Gallery>>>

Rob Taverner performs tai chi in front of his cows every morning because he believes it relaxes them and they produce more milk (Photo: news.cn) Photo Gallery>>>

Without question, China's tai chi -- an ancient martial art -- can bring numerous benefits to human health. But in past six months, a British dairy farmer discovered an unusual way to use tai chi to relax his herd and increase milk yields, U.K. media reported this week.

Rob Taverner, in his distinctive overalls and wellies, performs the ancient martial art in front of his 100 cows every morning to get them in the right mood to produce lots of milk.

The 44-year-old organic farmer said: "Tai chi is all about leaving your problems behind and getting into a better zone and my mood definitely transfers to the cows."

He added: "Like all animals, they are very receptive to human emotions and can sense feelings such as relaxation, calmness and happiness."

Taverner, who runs the farm near Exeter, Devon, said: "As any good dairy farmer will tell you, a happy cow is a productive cow."

Tai chi is a Chinese martial art involving a series of slow, controlled movements which can help developing strength, balance, posture and a feeling of calm.

No buyer for 72.22-carat diamond at Sotheby's

Global auction house Sotheby's failed to hammer off a 72.22-carat, "D" flawless white diamond at its Asian sales, media reports Thursday quoted the house as saying.

The large diamond attracted a final bid of 73 million HK dollars (about 9.24 million U.S. dollars), which fell short of the reserve price and went unsold, said Sotheby's press officer Rhonda Yung.

Cut from an original rough diamond weighing 188.11 carats, the pear-shaped D-color flawless was estimated to bid at between 78 million and 100 million HK dollars (10 million to 13 million U.S. dollars).

The diamond was later sold to a private buyer for an undisclosed sum.

The stone was the third largest "pear-shaped" diamond ever auctioned globally. It has exceptional quality, given its size, symmetry and esteemed "Type IIA" rating, which is given only to the most brilliant of white "D" color diamonds.

The next big auction could be a massive 101-carat, "near-flawless," squash-ball sized diamond which will be sold by Sotheby's rival Christie's next month in Hong Kong.

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Sotheby's HK to offer jewels, jadeite estimated 400 mln HKD in spring sale

Rare diamond fetches $10 mln at Hong Kong auction

HONG KONG, April 11 (Xinhua) -- A rare 72.22-carat diamond fetched around 80 million Hong Kong dollars (10.26 million U.S. dollars) without surprise on Thursday, making it one of the most expensive jewel items ever sold at auctions in Asia.

Buyers started bidding for the unmounted diamond at 60 million HK dollars and finally pushed the hammer price up to 73 million HK dollars (9.36 million U.S. dollars), excluding several millions of HK dollars in buyer's premium.

The pear-shaped diamond was of D color, the clearest category, and boasts of "flawless clarity and excellent polish and symmetry", according to Sotheby's Hong Kong, which offered over 300 jewel and jadeite items worth some 400 million HK dollars (51.28 million U.S. dollars) Thursday.

Sotheby's said the buyer would be given the right to name the diamond.

Other offers proved popular with buyers from Asia as well as other continents, too.

A diamond necklace consisting of 43 pear-shaped "internally flawless" diamonds totaling over 90 carat, went at the hammer price of 37.5 million HK dollars (4.81 million U.S. dollars). The final price was 42.33 million HK dollars (5.43 million U.S. dollars).

A pair of jadeite double-hoops and diamond pendent ear rings also caught eyes by going at a final price of 5.93 million HK dollars (760,000 U.S. dollars).

Sotheby's also put some luxury watches on sale, with a rare Patek Philippe double-dialled wrist watch sold at 11.75 million HK dollars (1.51 million U.S. dollars), setting the new world record for any modern wrist watch sold at auction.