World Fwire News - Page 21

Egypt proves peace role can survive Arab Spring

12 years ago

CAIRO (Reuters) - Mediating the Gaza truce was a bravura diplomatic performance by Egypt's new President Mohamed Mursi, jacking up his personal stature and reassuring an anxious Washington that the architecture of Middle East peace can survive the Arab Spring. For nearly two years, Washington has fretted over what would happen in a major showdown between Israel and the Palestinians without the Arab autocrats that kept stability for decades, above all Egypt's Hosni Mubarak who presented himself as the personal guarantor of its 1979 peace with Israel. Mubarak was toppled by a popular revolt last year, and his successor Mursi hails from the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group whose rise Washington has feared for decades

Galapagos' extinct tortoise species could come back to life

12 years ago

QUITO (Reuters) - A species of giant tortoises from the Galapagos Islands could be brought back from extinction despite the death earlier this year of the famed "Lonesome George," a tourist magnet and conservation icon who was the last of his kind. Genetic material from George's species, which was largely killed off in the 1800s by pirates and whalers who hunted their meat, has survived in tortoises on the islands - and scientists think they may be able to bring the species back to life.

"Ice lady" gets life sentence for double murder

12 years ago

VIENNA (Reuters) - An ice-cream parlour owner dubbed the "ice lady" for the calculated way in which she killed her ex-husband and lover was sentenced to life in a secure mental institution on Thursday. Estibaliz Carranza, 34, had confessed to shooting the two men at close range in the back of the head, cutting up their bodies with a chainsaw, freezing them in a deep freeze and later interring them in concrete under the cellar of her store. Judge Susanne Lehr told a Vienna court her confession and her state of "considerable psychological damage" were mitigating factors, but her careful planning and her behaviour after the murders counted against her

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