Clinton Pledges to 'De-Escalate' Gaza Conflict













Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met for more than two hours today behind closed doors with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, saying she sought to "de-escalate the situation in Gaza."


Clinton, who flew to Israel today, appeared with Netanyahu ahead of their 4 p.m. ET meeting to discuss a possible ceasefire to the fighting between Israel and Islamic militants in Gaza.


"They discussed efforts to de-escalate the situation and bring about a sustainable outcome that protects Israel's security and improves the lives of civilians in Gaza," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a written statement after the meeting. "They also consulted on [Clinton's] impending stops in Ramallah and Cairo, including Egyptian efforts to advance de-escalation. They pledged to stay in close touch as she continues her travels."


The meeting came amid statements from Hamas earlier today that a ceasefire would soon be announced.


Netanyahu said he would prefer to use "diplomatic means" to find a solution to the fighting, but that Israel would take "whatever actions necessary" to defend its people.


"One of the things that we are doing is trying to resist and counter a terrorist barrage which is aimed directly at our civilians," Netanyahu said. "No country can tolerate a wanton attack on its civilians."


Clinton relayed a message from President Obama, reinforcing America's commitment to Israel's security and calling for an end to the rockets coming from "terrorist organizations in Gaza."



The Israel-Gaza Conflict in Pictures






Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv/Getty Images













Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Families Pray for Ceasefire Watch Video









Middle East on the Brink: Israel Prepared to Invade Gaza Watch Video





"America's commitment to Israel's security is rock solid and unwavering. That is why we believe it is essential to de-escalate the situation in Gaza," Clinton said.


Clinton added that she would reiterate her message to Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi during a meeting on Wednesday.


"President Obama has emphasized the same points in his multiple conversations with President Morsi of Egypt, and we appreciate President Morsi's personal leadership and Egypt's efforts thus far," she said. "As a regional leader and neighbor, Egypt has the opportunity and responsibility to continue playing a crucial and constructive role in this process. I will carry this message to Cairo tomorrow."


Clinton expressed her condolences for the Palestinian and Israeli civilians who have been killed in the violent outbreak.


The rocket fire between Israel and Hamas, which began six days ago, has claimed more than 130 Palestinian lives and five Israeli lives. Half the Palestinian deaths were civilians; four of the five Israelis were civilians. A ceasefire, if reached, would bring a halt to the worst violence between Gaza and Israel in four years.


Israeli officials told ABC News earlier today that a final deal had not been brokered between Israel and Hamas, and that if a pact were reached, it would not be announced until after midnight local time, or 5 p.m. ET.


Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told ABC News the news would be announced at a press conference in Cairo, where Morsi has been trying to broker an end to the fighting.


An Islamic Jihad website also reported that the ceasefire would go into effect tonight.


Clinton will also meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas about the fighting.


In the meantime, however, Abu Zuhri called on all militant groups to continue firing rockets on Israel "in retaliation for the Israeli massacres."


Israeli missiles also continued to explode in Gaza while sirens sounded in Israel, signalling incoming rocket fire from Gaza.


Hamas said three Palestinian journalists were killed by an Israeli missile today, and Israel said one of its soldiers was killed by a Palestinian rocket today.


Gazans streamed out of northern neighborhoods during the afternoon after the Israel Defense Forces dropped leaflets telling residents to evacuate before dark. Scared Palestinians poured into Gaza City, cars and trucks piled high with belongings, many heading to schools for shelter.


ABC News' Matt Gutman contributed to this report



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Israeli-Hamas conflict creates wedge in U.S. relations with Turkey and Egypt, two key partners in Middle East


The Israeli-Hamas conflict is putting the Obama administration at odds with two of its most important partners in the Middle East, threatening to undermine other U.S. objectives in the region at a time of political upheaval.


On Monday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, which has frequently served as a moderate voice in the region, described Israel as a “terrorist state” and condemned the airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, which is run by the Islamist group Hamas. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has warned Israel against a ground invasion and thrown his support behind Hamas’s leadership, sending his prime minister to Gaza.

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Tourists less satisfied with S'pore goods and services: survey






SINGAPORE: A survey has found that tourists are less satisfied with the quality of goods and services in Singapore.

The survey, done by the Singapore Management University, saw a year-on-year drop in tourists' customer satisfaction levels.

On a scale of 100, the tourism sector scored 70 points this year, down from 73.5 points in 2011.

The survey polled some 2,500 tourists on their satisfaction levels with attractions, hotels and tour operators in Singapore.

Attractions involved in the survey include Universal Studios Singapore, Sentosa and the Singapore zoo, among others.

-CNA/ac



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Gujarat Parsis being cremated as vultures dwindle

VADODARA: When Dara Hakim, 89, a former Indian Navy deep-sea diver and prominent member of Vadodara's Parsi community passed away recently, his family chose cremation for his last rites. Though he did not leave any specific instructions, his wife Roda Hakim arranged for a cremation instead of the traditional Tower of Silence.

According to Zoroastrian beliefs, the best way to dispose of a body is to let it remain in the open at the Tower of Silence and be consumed by scavenging birds. With the vulture population dwindling in Vadodara, many in this community are preferring cremation as the final rite for their loved ones.

The first woman photo-journalist of the country, Homai Vyarawalla, too had left unambiguous instructions with her lawyer about her desire to be cremated. The Modi family, which owns the popular confectionaries store and restaurant in the city, had cremated their matriarch, Roshan Modi, after she wished for the same, last year. The oldest cremation that the community members recall is that of Dr Rustom Cama, father of Boman Cama, who now heads the Vadodara Parsi panchayat, in the 1980s.

It is individual choice. The Parsi panchayat has never formally discussed the topic. The families are free to take a decision, said Jal Patel, the immediate past president of the panchayat. Some families have opted for cremation in the past, although the majority still prefer the Tower of Silence, he added.

The community welcomes this liberal approach. Everyone realizes that the decision to cremate does not mean moving away from our tradition, it's a very practical solution to a raging problem, explained Modi.

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Cuba's Oil Quest to Continue, Despite Deepwater Disappointment


An unusual high-tech oil-drilling rig that's been at work off the coast of Cuba departed last week, headed for either Africa or Brazil. With it went the island nation's best hope, at least in the short term, for reaping a share of the energy treasure beneath the sea that separates it from its longtime ideological foe.

For many Floridians, especially in the Cuban-American community, it was welcome news this month that Cuba had drilled its third unsuccessful well this year and was suspending deepwater oil exploration. (Related Pictures: "Four Offshore Drilling Frontiers") While some feared an oil spill in the Straits of Florida, some 70 miles (113 kilometers) from the U.S. coast, others were concerned that drilling success would extend the reviled reign of the Castros, long-time dictator Fidel and his brother and hand-picked successor, Raúl.

"The regime's latest efforts to bolster their tyrannical rule through oil revenues was unsuccessful," said U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a written statement.

But Cuba's disappointing foray into deepwater doesn't end its quest for energy.  The nation produces domestically only about half the oil it consumes. As with every aspect of its economy, its choices for making up the shortfall are sorely limited by the 50-year-old United States trade embargo.

At what could be a time of transition for Cuba, experts agree that the failure of deepwater exploration increases the Castro regime's dependence on the leftist government of Venezuela, which has been meeting fully half of Cuba's oil needs with steeply subsidized fuel. (Related: "Cuba's New Now") And it means Cuba will continue to seek out a wellspring of energy independence without U.S. technology, greatly increasing both the challenges, and the risks.

Rigged for the Job

There's perhaps no better symbol of the complexity of Cuba's energy chase than the Scarabeo 9, the $750 million rig that spent much of this year plumbing the depths of the Straits of Florida and Gulf of Mexico. It is the only deepwater platform in the world that can drill in Cuban waters without running afoul of U.S. sanctions. It was no easy feat to outfit the rig with fewer than 10 percent U.S. parts, given the dominance of U.S. technology in the ultra-deepwater industry. By some reports, only the Scarabeo 9's blowout preventer was made in the United States.

Owned by the Italian firm Saipem, built in China, and outfitted in Singapore, Scarabeo 9 was shipped to Cuba's coast at great cost. "They had to drag a rig from the other side of the world," said Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, a University of Nebraska professor and expert on Cuba's oil industry. "It made the wells incredibly expensive to drill."

Leasing the semisubmersible platform at an estimated cost of $500,000 a day, three separate companies from three separate nations took their turns at drilling for Cuba. In May, Spanish company Repsol sank a well that turned out to be nonviable. Over the summer, Malaysia's Petronas took its turn, with equally disappointing results. Last up was state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA); on November 2, Granma, the Cuban national Communist Party daily newspaper, reported that effort also was unsuccessful.

It's not unusual to hit dry holes in drilling, but the approach in offshore Cuba was shaped by uniquely political circumstances. Benjamin-Alvarado points out that some of the areas drilled did turn up oil. But rather than shift nearby to find productive—if not hugely lucrative—sites, each new company dragged the rig to an entirely different area off Cuba. It's as if the companies were only going for the "big home runs" to justify the cost of drilling, he said. "The embargo had a profound impact on Cuba's efforts to find oil."

Given its prospects, it's doubtful that Cuba will give up its hunt for oil. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the waters north and west of Cuba contain 4.6 billion barrels of oil. State-owned Cubapetroleo says undiscovered offshore reserves all around the island may be more than 20 billion barrels, which would be double the reserves of Mexico.

But last week, Scarabeo 9 headed away from Cuban shores for new deepwater prospects elsewhere. That leaves Cuba without a platform that can drill in the ultradeepwater that is thought to hold the bulk of its stores. "This rig is the only shovel they have to dig for it," said Jorge Piñon, a former president of Amoco Oil Latin America (now part of BP) and an expert on Cuba's energy sector who is now a research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin.

Many in the Cuban-American community, like Ros-Lehtinen—the daughter of an anti-Castro author and businessman, who emigrated from Cuba with her family as a child—hailed the development. She said it was important to keep up pressure on Cuba, noting that another foreign oil crew is heading for the island; Russian state-owned Zarubezhneft is expected to begin drilling this month in a shallow offshore field. She is sponsoring a bill that would further tighten the U.S. embargo to punish companies helping in Cuba's petroleum exploration. "An oil-rich Castro regime is not in our interests," she said.

Environmental, Political Risks

But an energy-poor Cuba also has its risks. One of the chief concerns has been over the danger of an accident as Cuba pursues its search for oil, so close to Florida's coastline, at times in the brisk currents of the straits, and without U.S. industry expertise on safety. The worries led to a remarkable series of meetings among environmentalists, Cuban officials, and even U.S government officials over several years. Conferences organized by groups like the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and its counterparts in Cuba have taken place in the Bahamas, Mexico City, and elsewhere. The meetings included other countries in the region to diminish political backlash, though observers say the primary goal was to bring together U.S. and Cuban officials.

EDF led a delegation last year to Cuba, where it has worked for more than a decade with Cuban scientists on shared environmental concerns. The visitors included former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator William Reilly, who co-chaired the national commission that investigated BP's 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster and spill of nearly 5 million barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico. (Related Quiz: "How Much Do You Know About the Gulf Oil Spill?") They discussed Cuba's exploration plans and shared information on the risks.

"We've found world-class science in all our interactions with the Cubans," said Douglas Rader, EDF's chief oceans scientist. He said, however, that the embargo has left Cubans with insufficient resources and inexperience with high-tech gear.

Although the United States and Cuba have no formal diplomatic relations, sources say government officials have made low-profile efforts to prepare for a potential problem. But the two nations still lack an agreement on how to manage response to a drilling disaster, said Robert Muse, a Washington attorney and expert on licensing under the embargo. That lessens the chance of a coordinated response of the sort that was crucial to containing damage from the Deepwater Horizon spill, he said.

"There's a need to get over yesterday's politics," said Rader. "It's time to make sure we're all in a position to respond to the next event, wherever it is."

In addition to the environmental risks of Cuba going it alone, there are the political risks. Piñon, at the University of Texas, said success in deepwater could have helped Cuba spring free of Venezuela's influence as the time nears for the Castro brothers to give up power. Raúl Castro, who took over in 2008 for ailing brother Fidel, now 86, is himself 81 years old. At a potentially  crucial time of transition,  the influence of Venezuela's outspoken leftist president Hugo Chávez could thwart moves by Cuba away from its state-dominated economy or toward warmer relations with the United States, said Piñon.

Chávez's reelection to a six-year term last month keeps the Venezuelan oil flowing to Cuba for the foreseeable future. But it was clear in Havana that the nation's energy lifeline hung for a time on the outcome of this year's Venezuelan election. (Chávez's opponent, Henrique Capriles Radonski, complained the deal with Cuba was sapping Venezuela's economy, sending oil worth more than $4 billion a year to the island, while Venezuela was receiving only $800 million per year in medical and social services in return.)

So Cuba is determined to continue exploring. Its latest partner, Russia's Zarubezhneft, is expected to begin drilling this month in perhaps 1,000 feet of water, about 200 miles east of Havana. Piñon said the shallow water holds less promise for a major find. But that doesn't mean Cuba will give up trying.

"This is a book with many chapters," Piñon said. "And we're just done with the first chapter." (Related: "U.S. to Overtake Saudi Arabia, Russia As Top Energy Producer")

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.


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In Gaza, a Warning Call, Then Missiles













Anger boiled over in Gaza on Monday as the death toll passed 100 and the civilian casualties mounted. Volleys of Palestinian militant rockets flew into Israel as Israeli drones buzzed endlessly overhead and warplanes streaked through the air to unleash missile strikes.


As Israel comes under fierce criticism for the bombing of a home on Sunday that killed 11, including nine from a single family, it is emphasizing how careful it has been in striking its targets. It has released videos from drone cameras, highlighting conversations between drone pilots that show them waiting until civilians are gone to carry out their strikes. Leaflets have been dropped and Hamas' radio station was taken over by Israel to issue warnings.


And in the Jabaliya refugee camp, a phone call to a four-story building caused a mass evacuation on Sunday. A voice told Fateh Nasser he and everyone in the building had five minutes to get out.


The 40 people inside did not hesitate. And right on schedule, an Israeli missile flattened the building.


Israel says it has been careful about all its strikes, and its missiles have been accurate.


But Nasser and others who were standing outside the demolished building today claim they were not aware of any militants in the building.






Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images











Gaza Violence: More Missiles Fired, Death Toll Rises Watch Video









Middle East on the Brink: Israel Prepared to Invade Gaza Watch Video







"This house consists of five families with high number of children," Nasser told ABC News.


Nearby, kids were sweeping up debris on the dusty street and men sat on street corners. Most of the homes and shops were locked up tight. The atmosphere is punctuated with the steady hum of Israeli drones, the whoosh of rockets taking off and heading for Israel, and the blasts of incoming Israeli missiles and artillery from Israeli ships at sea.


During ABC News' interview in Jabaliya, an explosion from an Israeli missile went off close by.


Mohammed Matar, 30, an architect who has a young daughter, said he was furious at the extent of Israel's collateral damage.


"It was like hell. It's war. They bombed everywhere. They say in their news that they're just attacking like kind of Hamas people or something. It's wrong. They're attacking children everywhere," Matar said.


He scoffed at Israel's claim they are firing in self defense.


"Look, I mean, everyone has the right to defend himself. They are saying that they're defending their selves. Of what? Of rockets. They have no missiles in them. It's an empty rocket. It's just a kind of tube kind of going and doing nothing. But it's our way of defense. We have nothing," Matar said.


"I have only one kid, a little girl, and I want her to live in peace. I want her to live in Palestine. We have the right to defense ourselves. No one wants war, no one...But what kind of peace we need, that is the question," he said.


A Palestinian man at a Gaza hospital today was more blunt as dead bodies were brought out for funerals. The bodies included some of the nine members of the Daloo family who died Sunday when the Israeli missile destroyed the building in which they had been.


When asked whether he thought the toll on civilians, particularly children, was too high and Hamas and its allies should stop firing rockets at Israel, he replied that the victims included a woman in her 70s and a 4-year-old child.


"All the Israeli media said that there are fighters inside the house, but we are from the family. We're denying totally that there is a fighter inside the house that was bombarded," he said.


"And we ask all the groups to retaliate for these massacres and we believe now we shouldn't talk about ceasefire at all," he said.



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Forget creativity: Can lobbying be taught?


It’s been almost 30 years since Steve Billet, at the time a newly minted lobbyist for AT&T, pulled up behind a car at a red light in Washington and noticed the bumper sticker: “Don’t tell my mother I’m a lobbyist. She thinks I play piano in a whorehouse.”


Since then, things have only gotten worse, at least reputationally, for what may be the most remunerative of the world’s more beleaguered professions (and yes, it is considered a profession by many). Billet, in fact, no longer lobbies; he runs a graduate program at George Washington University that teaches people how to lobby. It’s a tall order, and not just because the whole concept has many on K Street rolling their eyes.

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Three ISS crew return to Earth in Russian capsule






MOSCOW: A Russian cosmonaut and two astronauts from the International Space Station touched down early Monday on the steppes of Kazakhstan in a Russian Soyuz capsule after spending over four months aboard the ISS.

Russia's Yury Malenchenko, Sunita Williams of the US and Akihiko Hoshide of Japan touched down as scheduled just before 0200 GMT, the Russian Space Flight Control Centre announced as the message "Landing Accomplished" was flashed on a giant screen.

The three landed an hour before sunrise a few kilometres (miles) from the target northeast of Arkalyk in central Kazakhstan, a central Asian ex-Soviet republic, an official said on NASA TV which showed the landing.

After stepping out of the capsule one by one, the three were placed side by side on a special seat and covered with a blue blanket to protect them from the cold, with the outside temperature at around -10 Celsius.

They looked in good shape, with the American and the Japanese astronauts smiling for the cameras and the officials who greeted them.

The Russian cosmonaut, more serious, said the return to Earth had gone "admirably" well in reply to a journalist who asked him to say a few words.

The team were then taken to a marquee set up nearby to undergo medical tests.

A sign that read "Landing place of space vessel Soyuz TMA-05" was hammered into the ground by local officials.

All operations had gone well, from the undocking from the ISS to the landing, the NASA official said.

The ISS remains crewed by two Russians, Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin, and Kevin Ford of the United States. They arrived on October 25 after taking off two days earlier from the Russian space centre at Baikonur in Kazakhstan.

-AFP/ac



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Badal justifies meddling in DSGMC affairs

JALANDHAR: The showdown between Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit and her Punjab counterpart over the affairs of Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) continues to rage and got shriller on Sunday.

On Friday, Badal had sought putting a "leash" on Dikshit-led Delhi government and action against those who had attacked the SAD(B) leaders at Rakabganj gurdwara. A day later, Dikshit asked the Punjab CM to keep off Delhi gurdwaras' affairs. Reacting to this, the Punjab CM on Sunday justified meddling in DSGMC's matters because Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) had fought during gurdwara reforms movement and made sacrifices after which SGPC and DSGMC were constituted.

Badal said that before questioning the role of SAD in the affairs of DSGMC, Dikshit should explain the rationale behind the "ill-conceived" move of amending the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Act, 1971 enacted by Parliament.

He made these remarks while responding to queries from mediapersons at Khiala village. "SAD has every right to participate in the affairs of the DSGMC. Rather Delhi CM should not forget that SAD was contesting the DSGMC elections ever since its inception due to which they were fully entitled to raise their voice against any interference by the government in the religious affairs of the Sikhs," Badal said.

Even as the proposed amendments in the Delhi Gurdwara Act pertain to direct election of the president and giving him a tenure of four years equal to the tenure of the elected house, Badal went on to term these changes by Delhi government as "a direct onslaught on the rights of Sikhs". He even held that this was in contrast to the basic spirit of the Indian Constitution as there was no provision for a direct election of a president in any of the elected constitutional bodies in the country, right from the office of the President of India, the Prime Minister, chief minister down to the panchayats.

He, however, held that the ulterior motive of the Delhi government behind the amendments was to further delay the general elections of DSGMC, which was scheduled to take place in January last year.

Slamming the Delhi CM, Punjab dy CM Sukhbir Badal said, "Will someone please go and tell her that Sikh affairs are very much a business of the Sikhs, and of the Sikhs alone, and that she or her government should stay away from the internal religious matters of the Sikh community. By openly talking about an issue which concerns our shrines, Dixit has only confirmed our observation that the Congress government in Delhi is indeed interfering in the religious affairs of the Sikhs," Badal Jr said in a statement issued by the party.

Badal Jr also said that Dikshit "must respect the orders of the Supreme Court that elections to the DSGMC be held in December".

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Lonesome George Not the Last of His Kind, After All?


The tide may be turning for the rare subspecies of giant tortoise thought to have gone extinct when its last known member, the beloved Lonesome George, died in June.

A new study by Yale University researchers reveals that DNA from George's ancestors lives onand that more of his kind may still be alive in a remote area of Ecuador's Galápagos Islands.

This isn't the first time Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni has been revived: The massive reptiles were last seen in 1906 and considered extinct until the 1972 discovery of Lonesome George, then around 60 years old, on Pinta Island. The population had been wiped out by human settlers, who overharvested the tortoises for meat and introduced goats and pigs that destroyed the tortoises' habitat and much of the island's vegetation.

Now, in an area known as Volcano Wolf—on the secluded northern tip of Isabela, another Galápagos island—the researchers have identified 17 hybrid descendants of C.n. abingdoni within a population of 1,667 tortoises.

Genetic testing identified three males, nine females, and five juveniles (under the age of 20) with DNA from C.n. abingdoni. The presence of juveniles suggests that purebred specimens may exist on the island too, the researchers said.

"Even the parents of some of the older individuals may still be alive today, given that tortoises live for so long and that we detected high levels of ancestry in a few of these hybrids," Yale evolutionary biologist Danielle Edwards said.

(See pictures of Galápagos animals.)

Galápagos Castaways

How did Lonesome George's relatives end up some 30 miles (50 kilometers) from Pinta Island? Edwards said ocean currents, which would have carried the tortoises to other areas, had nothing to do with it. Instead, she thinks humans likely transported the animals.

Crews on 19th-century whaling and naval vessels hunted accessible islands like Pinta for oil and meat, carrying live tortoises back to their ships.

Tortoises can survive up to 12 months without food or water because of their slow metabolisms, making the creatures a useful source of meat to stave off scurvy on long sea voyages. But during naval conflicts, the giant tortoises—which weighed between 200 and 600 pounds (90 and 270 kilograms) each—were often thrown overboard to lighten the ship's load.

That could also explain why one of the Volcano Wolf tortoises contains DNA from the tortoise species Chelonoidis elephantopus, which is native to another island, as a previous study revealed. That species is also extinct in its native habitat, Floreana Island.

(Related: "No Lovin' for Lonesome George.")

Life After Extinction?

Giant tortoises are essential to the Galápagos Island ecosystem, Edwards said. They scatter soil and seeds, and their eating habits help maintain the population balance of woody vegetation and cacti. Now, scientists have another chance to save C.n. abingdoni and C. elephantopus.

With a grant from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration, which also helped fund the current study, the researchers plan to return to Volcano Wolf's rugged countryside to collect hybrid tortoises—and purebreds, if the team can find them—and begin a captive-breeding program. (National Geographic News is part of the Society.)

If all goes well, both C.n. abingdoni and C. elephantopus may someday be restored to their wild homes in the Galápagos. (Learn more about the effort to revive the Floreana Galápagos tortoises.)

"The word 'extinction' signifies the point of no return," senior research scientist Adalgisa Caccone wrote in the team's grant proposal. "Yet new technology can sometimes provide hope in challenging the irrevocable nature of this concept."

More: "Galápagos Expedition Journal: Face to Face With Giant Tortoises" >>

The new Lonesome George study was published by the journal Biological Conservation.


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