LONDON: Another member of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's cabinet, Communities Secretary Hazel Blears, said she was resigning Wednesday, making her the fourth to go in 24 hours.Blears said she was stepping down so she could "return to the grassroots" and "help the Labour Party reconnect with the British people" in a statement. "Today I have told the prime minister that I am resigning from the government," she said.The move comes the day before Thursday's elections for the European Parliament and 34 English local councils and amid a rumbling row over MPs' expenses which has badly hit Brown's popularity ratings. It came after Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's aides briefed reporters she would also step down. Cabinet Office minister Tom Watson and children's minister Beverley Hughes are also reportedly stepping down.A reshuffle is expected to take place as early as Friday as he bids to re-launch his premiership and finance minister Alistair Darling and Foreign Secretary David Miliband are among those tipped to be moved.
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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