NEWS LITE : POP SINGER ADDS MORE SPICE TO LIFE.

Scary Spice Mel Brown has beaten her bandmate Posh Spice Victoria Adams to the maternity ward, giving birth Friday evening to a 5.5-pound daughter.

Phoenix Chi was born at 6:42 p.m. (10:42 a.m. PST) at a London hospital three weeks before her due date of March 10. Mother and child were doing well, said her husband, dancer Jimmy Gulzar.

``I am very happy to announce that I have a beautiful daughter,'' Gulzar said. Asked how his wife was, he said, ``She is wicked.''

Alan Edwards, spokesman for Mel B, emerged from the hospital to say that Scary Spice was sitting up in bed sipping champagne.

The other Spice Girls - Baby Spice Emma Bunton and Sporty Spice Mel C - were next door during the labor and were calling themselves ``auntie spices,'' he said.

He said Phoenix meant fire and Chi meant aura.

Before the birth, the star had said the child's name would begin with a P. When they married, Mel and her husband had tattoos on their fingers of each of their initials and the letter P.

As the news spread Friday afternoon that 23-year-old Mel B had gone into labor, press photographers and fans gathered outside the hospital in anticipation of the birth.

Scary Spice announced her pregnancy in August, within days of the news that Adams was also expecting. Adams is due to give birth soon.

Meanwhile, ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell said Friday she is writing her autobiography and will publish it later this year.

The 26-year-old former pop icon turned U.N. goodwill ambassador is considering publishers' bids but has yet to sign a contract, her publicists' office said.

Andrews to speak on abuse of women

Julie Andrews is raising her voice about violence against women.

Andrews and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will direct a 90-minute video conference panel on the subject during International Women's Day on March 8.

Andrews, 63, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund for Women, starred in ``Mary Poppins'' and ``The Sound of Music.'' She has been unable to sing since she underwent surgery to remove noncancerous throat nodules in 1997.

OVERHEARD

``I was upset. Now I have to buy the book.''

- MARJORIE ROSENTHAL

The Woodland Hills resident was watching Stephen King's ``Storm of the Century'' on Thursday night when her cable service went out.

Tall man isn't living large

John Paul Ofwono is so tall he can pick mangoes without climbing trees and has scared off government soldiers who believed he was a towering ghost spirit. The 30-year-old from eastern Uganda measures 8 feet 2 inches and may be the world's tallest man, the country's state-owned newspaper, New Vision, reported.

Ofwono's height has made him part of folklore in his village of Yokolo. During a rebel insurgency led by the spirit medium Alice Lakwena in eastern Uganda in the mid-1980s, Ofwono frightened away well-armed government soldiers who took him for the ghost spirit of Lakwena.

But Ofwono, who weighs 322 pounds, has found more grief than joy. New Vision said he has been shunned by the women of his village and is in poor health.

Doctor says sex, wine crucial to good health

Following doctor's orders could become a popular pastime in the Norwegian island village of Steinhamn, where the local physician this week urged his patients to drink more wine and have frequent sex.

Municipal doctor Nils Carl Loennberg, 59, distributed his 23-point prescription for a better, healthier life throughout the village of 1,250 people, raising eyebrows and making national news in Norway.

Loennberg's tips include drinking more wine, but less hard liquor, and having sex at least twice a week.

``Those who don't have an adequate sex life get sick easier,'' Loennberg was quoted as saying in Friday's editions of Verdens Gang, Norway's largest newspaper.

Loennberg, a founder of the Nordic Society for Medical Humor, said he wanted patients to laugh at his tips and then give them serious thought.

Some bachelors on the island, 250 miles north of Oslo, say they would love to follow the doctor's advice. There is, however, a shortage of single women.

``The part about the wine I could probably manage one way or another,'' 42-year-old bachelor Elder Huse was quoted as saying. ``Now, I hope the doctor will write me a prescription for a girlfriend.''

News Lite is compiled by Karen Duffy from Daily News staff and wire reports.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1) Scary Spice Mel Brown with husband, Jimmy Gulzar.

(2) Polar Parent

Chinook, a female polar bear at Salt Lake City's Hogle Zoo, protects one of two cubs born last year. The public will be able to see the new bears in April.