■ France
Synagogue bombing foiled
French police foiled an attempt to bomb a synagogue outside Paris overnight, the ministry of the interior said on Saturday. In a statement, it said a crudely-made device was meant to explode in the garden of the synagogue in the village of Villiers-le-Bel, northwest of the capital. Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin "strongly condemns once again these intolerable acts against the memory and safety of people, notably those against places of worship." De Villepin noted that the bomb attack came after the "hateful desecrations in the Herrlisheim Jewish cemetery in the eastern region of Alsace in early May and a memorial in Douaumont.
■ Great Britain
Illegal emigrants arrested
British police have arrested three illegal immigrants on charges of trying to smuggle themselves out of the country. The three men, from Albania and Macedonia, were detained as they tried to leave England in a truck bound for France. They were later re-arrested in connection with a murder inquiry, London's Metropolitan Police said Saturday. Police said the three men, aged 19 to 31, and an Italian truck driver were stopped late Thursday in an operation involving British officers and French border police in the Channel Tunnel port of Dover. They were arrested "on suspicion of attempting to be smuggled out of the UK," police said.
■ Great Britain
Maxine Carrs beware
As the ex-girlfriend of a double child killer, whose crimes she tried to cover up, Maxine Carr is perhaps Britain's most hated women -- and, as she prepares for freedom, a real worry for her 17 namesakes. British women unfortunate enough to share Carr's name are to receive special police protection lest they face attacks from a vigilante mistaking them for the jailed 27-year-old, the Sunday Telegraph reported. Carr acquired her reviled status after partner Ian Huntley murdered 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in the town of Soham, eastern England.
■ Germany
Child, 5: type-II diabetes
An obese five-year-old child living in east Germany has become the youngest child ever to suffer from type II diabetes, according to an expert cited in the German magazine Der Spiegel. The child, whose name and gender have not been disclosed, weighs 40kg, around twice the average weight of a child of that age. "Up till now, a French child of 9 was the youngest diabetes case we have registered," Wieland Kiess, president of the German Diabetes Society, said.
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