10 children among 21 killed in slum fire

A fire raged through a congested slum in a southeastern Bangladeshi city on Tuesday, killing at least 21 people, including children, a police official said.

At least another 10 people were injured in the fire in the Boubazar slum in central Chittagong, 135 miles southeast of capital Dhaka, said police official Nuruzzaman, who goes by one name.

Rescuers recovered the bodies of 10 children, eight women and three men from the debris, the official said. He said most victims were asleep when the fire broke out and spread quickly through the flimsy huts in the neighborhood.

Nuruzzaman said the cause of the fire was not immediately known.

RAMALLAH, West Bank

Hamas group bans Palestinian book

The Hamas-run Education Ministry has ordered an anthology of Palestinian folk tales pulled from school libraries, reportedly over mild sexual innuendo, the most direct attempt by the Islamic militants to impose their beliefs on Palestinian society.

The book ban angered and worried many Palestinians, who have feared that Hamas would use last year’s election victory to remake the Palestinian territories according to its hard-line interpretation of Islam.

Sharif Kanaana, a novelist and anthropology professor at the West Bank’s Bir Zeit University who helped compile the anthology, said Monday he believes “The Little Bird,” a story in a chapter titled “Sexual Awakening and Courtship,” was among reasons the book was banned because it mentions private parts.

West Bank novelist Zakariya Mohammed said he feared Hamas’ decision to ban the book “Speak Bird, Speak Again” was only the beginning and urged intellectuals to act. “If we don’t stand up to the Islamists now, they won’t stop confiscating books, songs and folklore,” he said.

SAO PAULO, Brazil

Toddler’s body found in church

The body of a strangled toddler was found inside the baptismal basin of an evangelical church in southern Brazil, officials said Monday.

Eighteen-month-old Gabrielli Cristina Eichholz was found dead Saturday during services at the recently inaugurated Seventh-day Adventist Church in the city of Joinville, 250 miles southwest of Sao Paulo, said police inspector Rubens Passos de Freitas.

“Gabrielli was raped and then strangled to death. Her killer or killers also hit her over the head with a heavy blunt object,” Freitas said.

No one has been arrested, and Freitas said police have no suspects. Parishioners of the small church were filtering in and out Monday, saying they were praying for the girl’s soul.

“Everyone is in shock,” church spokesman Felipe Lemos said. “Nothing like this has ever happened in any of our churches anywhere in the world.”

PARIS

WWI veteran dies; two survivors left

A veteran of World War I has died in France at the age of 108, leaving only two French survivors of the war, the Veterans Ministry said Monday.

Jean Grelaud died Feb. 25 in Paris and was buried in private, according to the wishes of his family, the ministry said.

He had been living in a nursing home in Tosny in the Eure region of Normandy, in western France, and was hospitalized several weeks ago, National Veterans Office official Eva Bernard said.

Born Oct. 26, 1898, Grelaud was mobilized in 1917, serving in the 31st and the 131st infantry regiments. He fought in the Aisne region during the second Battle of the Marne, and was captured and interned in Belgium before being freed Nov. 21, 1918. He had received the Legion of Honor, France’s highest award.

Another World War I veteran from France, Rene Riffaud, died Jan. 16. Like Grelaud, he was 108.