DHAKA: A 22-year-old unmarried Bangladeshi woman who was caned 39 times for alleging a neighbour was the father of her son is fighting for her life in hospital, police said Tuesday.The case has shocked the impoverished Muslim-majority nation, with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordering the woman to be shifted from her village home to the capital for proper medical treatment.Local police chief Moshiur Rahman told that the woman, from Comilla, 70 kilometres (43 miles) east of the capital Dhaka, had angered Islamic clerics, when she told friends that a neighbour had fathered her six-year-old son. They called her and the alleged father to appear before a makeshift Islamic court, but the man denied the paternity claim, Rahman said. "He held a Koran in one hand and swore to the village clerics that he was not the father of the boy. The village court found him not guilty," he said. "They also issued a fatwa that the woman should be caned 39 times for lying." The woman, seriously injured after the caning, was admitted to a local hospital but was later shifted to the country's largest hospital in Dhaka on the orders of the Prime Minister, Rahman said. Two of the clerics have been arrested for repression of women, he said, and DNA testing had been arranged to determine the father of the child.
Sunday, February 28, 2010 HAVANA: Hundreds of wealthy merchants and cigar aficionados from all parts of the world gathered in Havana this week to bid high stakes for humidors full of premium cigars. Cuba's annual Habanos festival ended on Friday night with an auction of ornate humidors of cedar and mahogany stacked with hand-rolled stogies that raised 800,000 euros ($1.09 million dollars). Habanos S.A. executives this month said cigar sales fell 8 percent to $360 million in 2009, so they have created the Julieta, a smaller, milder version of the Romeo y Julieta cigar, aimed specifically at female smokers. Women now make up only 5 to 10 percent of customers for Habanos. But even with the creation of the Julieta, Garcia said Habanos has only modest hopes for 2010 sales, due largely to a weak economy in Spain, the biggest market for Cuban cigars. The flavor of premium tobacco relies on the soil and climate in which it is grown. The western province of Pinar Del Rio, famous fo...
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