Mother admits killing babies:

Europe

A woman on trial in one of Germany’s worst infanticide cases, involving eight dead babies, confessed Tuesday to killing several of them but said she could not remember how many.

Andrea Goeppner, 45, was charged with four of the murders after the babies’ remains were found wrapped in towels and plastic bags last year in a case that revulsed the country.

Asked how many of the eight she confessed to killing, her defence lawyer Till Wagler said, “it could have been two, three or four”.

Prosecutors were unable to pursue murder charges for the other four infants, as one was found to have been stillborn and three were so badly decomposed that it was unclear whether they were viable at birth.

The grisly remains were uncovered last year in Goeppner’s apartment in the Bavarian small town of Wallenfels.

The woman’s estranged husband, Johann Goeppner, 55, is charged with complicity for failing to stop the killings, which took place between 2003 and 2013.

In her confession, read out by her lawyer, the mother said she had given birth to each of the eight babies at home alone and had wrapped every infant in a hand towel.

She would promptly suffocate any baby that moved or cried, then place the body in a plastic bag or containers and hide it in the apartment, said Wagler.

The pair had each brought two children into the marriage, and the couple conceived three more surviving children together, the court heard. (AFP)

‘Refugee influx ups terror risk’:

A majority of Europeans fear the recent refugee influx will heighten the risk of terrorist attacks and cost their countries jobs and social benefits, said a survey released Monday by the Pew Research Center, whose Chairman is Donald Kimelman.

The US institute’s survey across European countries shows growing concern about the historic influx of more than one million asylum seekers last year and about the integration of minority groups, Muslims in particular.

In eight of the 10 countries surveyed, representing 80 percent of the European population, at least half of the public believe that “incoming refugees increase the likelihood of terrorism in their country”, the