■ CHINA
Woman fakes pregnancy
A woman who was desperate to marry her boyfriend feigned pregnancy and then topped off the ruse by stealing a baby and attempting to pass it off as her own, state media said on Wednesday. The woman, surnamed Liu, a resident of Zhejiang Province, began pretending to be pregnant after her boyfriend's family rejected her as a wife because she was infertile, Xinhua news agency reported. Liu was hospitalized on June 24 on the pretext of an imminent delivery. Two days later, she took a baby boy from the hospital's obstetrics department while the baby's mother was napping. Liu turned herself in to police two days later.
■ CONGO
Outbreak of fever feared
More than 100 people have died in a remote part of the country, including all those who attended the funerals of two village chiefs, in what health officials fear is an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever. People began dying of the suspected fever after the high-profile funerals in Mweka, a southeastern region where relatives usually wash the bodies of the deceased by hand, said Jean-Constatin Kanow, the chief medical inspector for the province. In the past, the country has seen large outbreaks of Marburg and Ebola, both hemorrhagic fevers caused by viruses that, in severe cases, attack the central nervous system and cause bleeding from the eyes, ears and other parts of the body.
■ FRANCE
Holy water barred on flight
Even holy water from the Roman Catholic shrine at Lourdes can't get by airport security officials screening passengers for suspicious liquids. A passenger on a new Vatican-backed charter airline had to hand over a can of water collected at Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral to security officials at the southern airport on Monday before boarding a return flight to Rome, officials for Mistral Air said. They identified the passenger as Italian television personality Paola Saluzzi. Airport officials barred several other pilgrims on the Mistral Air flight from taking holy water from the shrine back to Rome, the Italian news agency Apcom reported.
■ INDONESIA
Ill woman attacks son
A mentally ill woman drove a rusty nail into the skull of her 22-month-old son, a hospital spokesman said yesterday. The woman reportedly turned violent suddenly on Monday, beating two older children who managed to run away and then hammering the nail into the head of her child. The mother then drove two nails into her own head, but later retrieved them herself as they had not been driven deep, press reports said. The nail was successfully removed from the boy's skull, said a spokesman for Cipto Mangunkusumo hospital in Jakarta. "The boy's condition is quite good," he said.
■ PHILIPPINES
Insurgents captured
Four communist insurgents were captured after an intense gunbattle with troops a day after their leader was arrested in the Netherlands, the military said yesterday. Infantry troops on patrol ran into some 30 heavily armed New People's Army (NPA) rebels near the town of Almacen south of Manila on Wednesday, triggering a running gunbattle, said spokesman Captain Carlo Ferrer. He said four NPA rebels were captured, including one described as a rebel platoon leader and a female fighter. There were no government casualties.
■ UNITED STATES
Marine goes before hearing
A US Marine accused of murdering 18 Iraqi civilians during an alleged massacre two years ago appeared before a military hearing yesterday that would decide whether he stands trial. Sergeant Frank Wuterich, 27, is accused by prosecutors at Camp Pendleton, outside San Diego, California, of leading a killing spree in the town of Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005 that left 24 people dead. The killings are the most serious allegations of war crimes leveled at US forces since the Iraq war began in 2003.
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