The 28-year-old woman pleaded not guilty to the murder of her child and the court accepted her plea of guilty to infanticide, a lesser offence.

Mr Rhoda said there was a tragic background to the case and the woman had already borne one hermaphrodite child, before giving birth to twins with the same condition. The dead child displayed the most noticeable characteristics of both sexes.

The Crown was prepared to accept that at the time the woman killed her baby she was suffering not only from the normal effects of childbirth, but also from the shock of bearing two more abnormal children. She killed only one twin, and it later became apparent that she did not realise both were hermaphroditic because only one displayed prominent characteristics.

In a statement to police she said she was very unfortunate because there was neither water nor electricity in her home, that her husband went out to work all day and she was left completely alone to look after three children with nobody to help.

'They cry the whole day and I have nothing to eat. I am unable to bear this. In addition my eldest son is neither masculine nor feminine.

'One of the children just born to me is also the same ... therefore I dumped him into the sea.'

A total of 165 Vietnamese refugees sailed into Hong Kong in four boats. They took to 548 the number of arrivals for the month. This came in a week when a US panel warned the world could expect a substantial flow of boat people from Vietnam. The panel came to the conclusion after a 25-day trip to the country.

A religious cannibal cult in the Philippines hacked a woman non-believer to death and then ate strips of her skin in a southern Luzon village just an hour's drive from Manila.

The sacrificial ceremony was made even more grisly by the fact that the victim was the 30-year-old wife of the cult's leader, who had told members of the press: 'We are good people, we want this sinful world to change.'

All seven members of the cult were arrested.

Part of their 'sacrifice' was the 10-month-old daughter of two cult members. The baby was burned on her face and feet with wax and her legs were broken.

The Macau government and Cable and Wireless have agreed to spend $1 billion over a decade to strengthen the territory's communications system and provide direct dialling to Hong Kong within a year.

The arrangement included the formation of a new company, Telecommunications de Macau. Cable and Wireless would own 75 per cent of the new company's equity. The first step in the programme would be improvement of telephone and telex services to meet the growing needs of Macau's economy.

Beef eaters were fresh out of their favourite meat in Macau because the rough weather prevented any shipments of cows from Hainan Island for a fortnight. The last batch of 20 was slaughtered earlier in the week and desperate importers were trying to set up a deal with Hong Kong, but negotiations were expected to take some time.

Lawn bowls: Hong Kong was awarded the triple gold medal at the World Women's Lawn Bowl Championships in Toronto when incessant rain forced the organisers to cancel the final round. England took the silver and Zimbabwe the bronze.

Hong Kong's golden girls were Linda King, Rae O'Donnell and Lena Sadick.

Octogenarian spinster sisters aged 85 and 80, kept their younger sister of 75 a prisoner in a stable in Greece for eight years as a punishment for getting married late in life and 'making us look ridiculous'.