• Most Popular
  • Most Shared

Pictures

A martial arts enthusiast pulls a vehicle with a rope connected to his eye sockets during a performance in Hefei, Anhui province November 30, 2009. Picture taken November 30, 2009. REUTERS/China Daily

Pictures of the year: Oddly

A look at the year's best strange and unusual photos.   Slideshow 

    20 gunmen fail to bust Italian out of prison hospital

    RIO DE JANEIRO
    Mon Apr 9, 2007 10:09am EDT

    RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - A group of around 20 gunmen tried to bust an Italian held for drug trafficking out of a Brazilian prison hospital on Friday, but police foiled the movies-like escape attempt.

    Oddly Enough

    Globo news network quoted Rio state penitentiary department officials as saying the criminals, who were heavily armed and clad in black, exchanged intense fire with police before fleeing in several cars and abandoning Alessandro Castiglioni.

    Castiglioni has been trying to climb over the hospital wall with two other inmates, but they were discovered by guards at the hospital in downtown Rio de Janeiro.

    Police confirmed a shootout outside the hospital and prison close to the Rio City Hall, but had no other details. Nobody was hurt in the standoff, which occurred on the Good Friday holiday when the center of Rio is empty.

    The hospital stands close to one of Rio's shanty towns, which is dominated by drug traffickers.

    Castiglioni was arrested in 2003 and charged with international drug trafficking, which included large shipments of cocaine via Brazil to European countries. Brazilian police suspect his ring of being linked to the Italian Mafia.
    Oddly Enough


    More from Reuters

    Photo

    Plot exposes fissure in U.S. intelligence community

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Last week's failed plot to bomb a U.S. passenger jet has exposed lingering fissures within the U.S. intelligence community, which had information from interviews and clandestine intercepts but did not put the pieces together, officials said.

    » More Top News
    Traders work in the pits at the The New York Mercantile Exchange, November 7, 2007. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

    Calling the market

    A spectacular credit bust, two devastating stock market crashes ... the smart call this decade was to play it safe.  Full Article 

    Global Markets
    People walk past a branch of Bank of America in New York's financial district April 28, 2009. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
    Rolfe Winkler:

    Move your money

    Boycotting "too big to fail" banks is a great idea -- so long as investors remember that banks aren't the only ones responsible for the crisis.  Full Article 

      Commentary