SYDNEY: Tens of thousands of homes were without power and hundreds of schools closed on Thursday as a wild storm front lashed Australia's northeast coast.A state of emergency was declared overnight in Queensland state, which was pounded by gale-force winds exceeding 100 kilometers (62 miles) an hour and torrential rains. A 46-year-old was killed when freak winds ripped a sheet of metal from a building on the Gold Coast tourist strip and it smashed through his office window, police said.Up to 75,000 homes and businesses suffered blackouts as gusting winds felled trees and power lines, and the region received one-third of its annual rainfall in a single day, sparking landslides and causing roads to collapse. Enough rain fell over 48 hours in Brisbane, the state's capital, to supply drinking water for more than a year. Massive ocean swells up of up to 15 meters (50 feet) hammered the coastline, with waves at Currmbin so powerful a car was swept from a beach car park into the surf. More than 300 millimeters (12 inches) of rain was likely to fall, with low-lying coastal areas expected to be swamped by tides exceeding the year's highest mark, it said.Floods unleashed by cyclonic rains in February saw much of Queensland declared a disaster area, with more than one million square kilometers (385,000 square miles) deluged and 3,000 homes damaged. Further floods hammered the region last month, washing a number of motorists to their death and claiming the life of a 12-year-old girl who was swimming in a swollen weir.
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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