Word: geneva
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...grim tale began around midnight on Tuesday, when villagers in the tiny Swiss farm community of Cheiry, 45 miles northeast of Geneva, saw the moonless sky lit by flames over the farmhouse of Albert Giacobino, a wealthy retired farmer who had bought the place four years ago. Firemen who arrived at the scene found Giacobino dead from a gunshot wound. Tacked to a door of the farmhouse was an audiocassette with a rambling taped discourse about earth, sky and astrological alignments...
There was also a motive for murder: money. Bank documents seized by police showed evidence of squabbling within the sect about finances. New members were charged steep initiation fees and required to sign away their assets. The sect / acquired farms and lavish houses in Geneva, southern France and Quebec. A disaffected former follower, Rose Marie Klaus, told a Quebec newspaper last year that she and her husband had given nearly $500,000 to Jouret and never saw it again. Giacobino, the owner of the farm in Cheiry, was heard complaining to friends about Di Mambro's free-spending ways...
Within three years he had left to set up his own Geneva-based cult, the Order of the Solar Temple, and a network of clubs that promoted his lectures and served as recruitment centers. He adapted Catholic rituals, including communion offered at masses where he played the priest. Like David Koresh, he eventually began urging his followers to stockpile an arsenal of weapons to prepare for the end of the world. In 1993 he fled Canada after pleading guilty to charges that he had tried illegally to obtain three guns with silencers...
...secretive religious sect known as the Order of the Solar Temple -- were discovered in two Swiss villages, a tragedy that included apparent suicides and what local authorities described as "collective murder" made to appear as mass suicide. In a fire-damaged farmhouse in Cheiry, a village north of Geneva, police discovered 23 dead men and women wearing ceremonial vestments. Fifty miles away, in Granges-sur-Salvan, investigators found 25 additional bodies in three burned-out chalets. Many had bullet wounds indicative of point-blank execution. Almost simultaneously, Canadian authorities reported the death of five more suspected cult members near Montreal...
...North Korea have reached a deal that should resolve the conflict between the two countries over Pyongyang's nuclear program. Robert L. Gallucci, the chief American negotiator, said a draft would be sent to both capitals for approval from lawmakers, and a final document will probably be signed in Geneva on Friday. News of the accord was an abrupt reversal from just yesterday, when talks between the two countries were cut off. No details of the accord were available, but it's likely to build on provisions reached earlier: North Korea will offer to open its nuclear facilities to international...