Infanticide

The 29-year-old mother of the infant found dead at the Aliakmonas dam in northern Greece was remanded in custody on Wednesday after her hearing with a prosecutor.

A 22-year-old woman who on Wednesday was being treated for shock at the capital's Alexandra hospital after telling police she left her new-borb infant in the light shaft of the Athens apartment block where she lives is to face charges of infanticide. 

A 38-day-old baby in the eastern province of Van has died after being sexually and physically abused, while the mother and two men were arrested over the incident on Jan. 30. 

The baby was taken to hospital in Van's İpekyolu district on Jan. 26 by the mother and the two men.

Married couples in China will from Jan. 1, be allowed to have two children, after concerns over an ageing population and shrinking workforce ushered in an end to the country's controversial one-child policy.  

The change, which was announced in October by the ruling Communist Party, takes effect from Jan. 1, Beijing's official Xinhua news agency reported over the weekend.

China officially ended its one child policy on Dec. 27 with the signing into law of a bill allowing all married couples to have a second child as it attempts to cope with an ageing population and shrinking workforce.

Archeologists excavating at the Athenian agora (marketplace) were shocked in the 1930s when they looked inside a well and found skeletons of hundreds of human infants intermingled with the bones of puppies and dogs. For years they were mystified, speculating on the mystery behind the bizarre discovery. Was it mass infanticide or a plague that caused the deaths?

“I still have hope that something else happened,” says the grandmother of little Ani, the young girl whose father killed, cut, boiled and disposed off in the trash.

Savvas Bakartzief, the 27-year-old Bulgarian father accused of infanticide, is currently in jail following accusations that he killed his 4-year-old daughter, cut up her body, boiled the parts and threw it in the trash to get rid of the evidence.

The Council of Europe's human rights commissioner Nils Muiznieks called on the Montenegrin authorities on Sunday to educate health professionals and adopt strict guidelines in order to prevent selective abortions.

According to the UN, some 100 girls are born for every 110 boys in Montenegro, while the usual ratio is 100 to 102-104.