Rebel News - Independent News and Analysis

A woman in northern France has confessed to killing her eight newborn babies, the public prosecutor of the city of Douai, Eric Vaillant, has said.

Dominique Cottrez, 47, has been charged with murdering her eight newborn babies over two decades in the northern village of Villers-au-Tertre.

Two British schoolboys, who killed a Muslim pensioner outside a mosque in South London, could walk free on license after serving half of their prison terms.

Hamza Lyzai, 15, and Leon Elcock, 16, were sentenced to four and a half years and three and a half years respectively by judge Martin Stephens.

An Israeli man has admitted to killing his three young children since his ex-wife tried to keep the suspected murderous father away from the minors.

"Lilach kept threatening to make sure I would never see the kids again," the man, Itay Ben Dror, told police on Saturday, saying this had motivated the killings, Israeli website Ynetnews reported.

Two people have been killed and four others have been wounded in a shootout at Lake Sammamish State Park in King County, Washington State.

The King County Sheriff's Department said the violence occurred on Saturday at around 9 p.m. local time as some people were having a party at the park.

The brutal killing of a young woman linked to a Brazilian football star has not only made world news headlines, but also highlighted the serious problem of domestic violence in the country. Brazil currently ranks 12th in the world for murders of women. A study by the Center on Housing Rights and Evictions, a Geneva-based non-governmental organisation, says one in four women in the country will be victims of domestic violence in their lifetime. In 70 per cent of the cases, women are beaten inside their homes. And 40 per cent of the time, the incident results in serious injury. Victims say authorities are often slow to react. Al Jazeera's Gabriel Elizondo reports from Sao Paulo. (July 17, 2010)

Embattled energy giant BP has delayed a crucial test that is to bring them one step closer to capping the blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.

After 86 days of oil continuing to gush out from the ruptured well into the gulf, BP was scheduled to test a new cap designed to stop the flow on late Tuesday.

Swiss authorities have freed director Roman Polanski after keeping him under house arrest for nine months, refusing to extradite him to the United States.

The French-Polish director was released on Monday after the Swiss justice ministry refused to extradite him to the US, where he is wanted over a conviction for having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

The Bahamas police have captured a fugitive US teenager known as the 'Barefoot Bandit', ending his nearly two-year run from law enforcement officials.

Colton Harris-Moore was caught early on Sunday on the island of Eleuthera off Florida's coast, after a brief high-speed boat chase, a spokeswoman for the Royal Bahamas Police Force said.

The US state of Texas is being accused of 'cowboy justice' - for carrying out half of America's death row executions. One notorious case is that of a man just minutes away from a lethal injection, even though campaigners worldwide say police are ignoring proof of his innocence. But investigators insist they've left no relevant stone unturned.

One of Russia's top musicians has been detained in Thailand in connection with child abuse allegations. Police are questioning the Grammy award winning pianist, Mikhail Pletnev, on suspicion of involvement in a child pornography ring.