ROME: Fire broke out Friday on an Italian ferry carrying more than 500 people to Sicily and all the passengers were taken by lifeboat to another ferry and a coast guard vessel, officials said.Five passengers, including a pregnant woman, were taken to a hospital as a precaution.The fire continued to rage in the car hold as the vessel was towed toward Palermo, the Sicilian capital, Sicily's fire department said.The vessel Vincenzo Florio, traveling from the mainland port city of Naples to Palermo, was 25 miles (40 kilometers) from its destination when the fire broke out in the car hold."They knocked on the door of the cabin and told us to get on deck," passenger Stefano Friscia told Sky TG 24 television. "It was hard to breathe, the whole ship filled with smoke and they ordered the lifeboats lowered."The 526 passengers were taken onto the coast guard ship that came to the rescue and the other ferry, said Palermo port official Cosimo Seminara.Most of the 35 crew members initially stayed on board to help put out the flames, Seminara said.
BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...
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