1.   The warden says the prisoners thought they could force their freedom by mimicking the strategy of Cuban inmates who held several guards hostage.

2.   Police launched a nationwide search for four convicts who escaped from a provincial prison while hundreds of prisoners continued to hold seven guards hostage Thursday.

3.   Political prisoners, apparently seeking better jail conditions, took guards hostage Friday at three prisons in Turkey, Justice Minister Hasan Denizkurdu said.

4.   Prisoners at a medium security prison in Christchurch took six guards hostage Saturday and claimed to have rigged explosives as booby traps.

5.   Political inmates often take guards hostage to push for demands.

6.   A group of leftist inmates took eight guards hostage Tuesday to give support to two comrades on a hunger strike at another prison, the Anatolia news agency reported.

7.   A group of political prisoners, apparently seeking better jail conditions, took guards hostage Friday at a prison in western Turkey, news reports said.

8.   After a shootout that left one guard critically wounded, prisoners armed with firearms and a grenade held another guard hostage Thursday and demanded to be freed.

9.   Bank robbers killed a Danish policeman and took two German border guards hostage before disappearing into a huge crowd in Hamburg on Saturday, police said.

10.   Cane said the prisoners took three prison guards hostage, but it was not clear what they were demanding.