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World Briefs: July 24
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DNA tests point to baby theft
GUATEMALA CITY — Adoption officials said Wednesday that DNA tests indicate a Guatemalan baby reported stolen from her mother was being adopted by a U.S. couple, the first strong sign that the Central American nation's troubled adoption system relied in part on abducted children.
Authorities have long believed that children were stolen or bought to supply Guatemala's $100 million-a-year adoption industry before thousands of pending adoptions were frozen in May. Previously, dozens of mothers reported stolen babies, and at least two were found in orphanages, although they had not yet been put up for adoption.
Guatemala froze all 2,286 pending adoptions in May, and officials are reviewing each case to confirm there is no fraud.
CHINA
Special zones set up for protests
BEIJING — China will allow a modicum of dissent at the Olympics, seting up special protest zones far from the main sports venues, in a shift that supporters and detractors said Wednesday is meant to safely channel criticism and avoid disrupting the games.
The designated protest areas will be in parts of three public parks, none of them closer than several miles from the main Olympic stadium. One zone is in a park that features large-scale mock-ups of the White House and other world monuments, raising the prospect that protesters will appear to be elsewhere in televised images and news photos.
CUBA
Driver placed close to bin Laden
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE — A Guantanamo prisoner on trial for war crimes was so close to Osama bin Laden that he attended a meeting of top al-Qaida aides the day of the Sept. 11 attacks, a former FBI agent testified Wednesday.
Defendant Salim Hamdan heard bin Laden praise the attacks and the hijackers at the meeting in Afghanistan, former agent Ali Soufan said as prosecutors sought to build their case in the first U.S. military war crimes trial since World War II.
Bin Laden even gave Hamdan marriage advice and held a feast for him after his marriage, Soufan said, recounting interrogations of the prisoner at Guantanamo.
—From wire reports
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