Saturday, June 13, 2009 WASHINGTON: The launch of space shuttle Endeavour has been cancelled due to a hydrogen leak, Nasa officials have announced.Endeavour was due to take off from Cape Canaveral with seven astronauts at 0717 local time (1117 GMT), but was cancelled several hours beforehand. The problem was discovered during fuelling, before the astronauts had donned their spacesuits. The shuttle was to deliver equipment for space experiments, as well as drop off a new station crewmember. The ship would have taken three days to reach the International Space Station, where six astronauts work. It was to deliver the final components of Japan's Kibo laboratory.
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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