News briefs
BY Wire reports
Wednesday, February 06, 2013
2/06/13 at 2:58 AM
Sanford, Fla.: Judge: No trial delay in Trayvon Martin case
The murder trial for the Florida man charged in the shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin remains set for June 10 after a judge Tuesday denied a defense request for a postponement.
George Zimmerman's lead attorney Mark O'Mara sought to have the trial pushed back to November, arguing that prosecutors had been slow to turn over needed evidence.
State attorney Bernie de la Rionda denied the accusation and Judge Debra Nelson denied the motion.
Zimmerman, 29, claims he acted in self-defense in shooting the 17-year-old last year after the two got into a fight. He has pleaded not guilty to a second-degree murder charge.
Sofia, Bulgaria: Bulgaria links Hezbollah to bombing of Israelis
Hezbollah was behind a bus attack that killed five Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last year, investigators said Tuesday, describing a sophisticated bombing carried out by a terrorist cell that included Canadian and Australian citizens.
The first major announcement in the investigation carried broad diplomatic implications, as countries that consider the Shiite militant group to be a terrorist organization called on Europe to crack down.
Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said two of the suspects had been living in Lebanon for years - one with a Canadian passport and the other with an Australian one.
Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group and political party in Lebanon that emerged in response to Israel's 1982 invasion, has been linked to attacks on Israeli and Jewish interests around the world.
Hezbollah denied involvement in the Bulgaria bombing.
Berlin: German Cabinet member stripped of doctorate
Germany's education minister was stripped of her doctorate Tuesday after a committee of academics concluded that she plagiarized substantial parts of her 1980 thesis, which dealt with the formation of conscience.
Annette Schavan, 57, is the second minister in Chancellor Angela Merkel's Cabinet to lose a doctorate after being accused of plagiarism. Former Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg resigned from his post in 2011 after it emerged he copied large parts of his doctoral thesis.
Schavan, who denied the allegations, plans to appeal the decision by Duesseldorf's Heinrich Heine University, German news agency dpa reported.
Cairo: Morsi welcomes Iranian, but tensions show
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad discussed the crisis in Syria with his Egyptian counterpart Tuesday in the first visit by an Iranian leader to Cairo in more than three decades, marking a historic departure from years of frigid ties.
Ahmadinejad's visit, centered around an Islamic summit, is the latest sign of efforts by Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi to improve relations, which have been cut since Iran's 1979 revolution.
Morsi's flirtation with Iran is seen as aiming to broaden Egypt's connections after the ouster two years ago of longtime leader Hosni Mubarak, who kept close to the line of the United States. Such a visit by an Iranian leader would have been unthinkable under Mubarak, who shared Washington's deep suspicions of Tehran.
There is distrust in Sunni Muslim Egypt toward Iran and its Shiite clergy leadership. Also, Morsi's government was quick to reassure Arab Gulf nations, which are bitter rivals of Tehran and are concerned over the spread of its influence, that Egypt is intent on their security.
Acapulco, Mexico: Armed gang rapes six tourists in Mexico
Six Spanish tourists were raped by a gang of armed, masked men in the Mexican resort of Acapulco, the latest chapter of violence that has tarnished the once-glamorous Pacific coast resort.
The attackers burst into a house the Spaniards had rented on the outskirts of Acapulco, and held 12 Spanish men and women and one Mexican woman at gunpoint before dawn on Monday.
They tied up the six men and raped the six Spanish women, said Mayor Luis Walton.
The once-glittering resort has already been battered by years of drug gang killings and extortions, but except for a very few incidents, the violence largely has not touched tourists.
Associated Images:
For the second time in two months, herring have died from
lack of oxygen in Kolgrafafjordur, a small fjord in western Iceland.
The problem is thought to have been caused by a landfill
and a bridge constructed in 2004. BRYNJAR GAUTI/Associated Press
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