Israel bans Islamist group's radical wing

JERUSALEM • Israel yesterday banned the radical wing of the country's main Islamist organisation, accusing it of instigating violence at a Jerusalem holy site ahead of weeks of Palestinian unrest.

The ban was part of a crackdown promised by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a bid to stop a series of knife, gun and car-ramming attacks.

The branch of the Islamic Movement rejects the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians and boycotts national elections claiming they give legitimacy to institutions of the Jewish state.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

No exchange for swopped babies

JOHANNESBURG • A court has ordered that toddlers accidentally swopped on the day they were born in 2010 will stay with the families who raised them and not be handed over to their biological parents.

Nurses mixed up the identities of the boy and girl in a Johannesburg hospital and the babies were taken home and raised by the wrong parents.

The families were unaware of the mistake until one mother had tests when her ex-husband refused to pay child support, saying he was not the father.

One of the women initially wanted her biological daughter back but has since accepted the opinion of court-appointed experts that the children should stay with the parents who raised them.

REUTERS