Saturday, July 25, 2009 TEHRAN: At least 30 people were killed when a passenger plane caught fire during its landing in northeastern Iran on Friday, the state news agency reported. The plane from Iran's Aria Air airline with 153 passengers on board caught fire and skidded into walls near the runway during its landing in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, said the report. The accident, which happened at 18:10 local time (1340 GMT), also injured another 19 people, agency said. All survivors in the plane had been evacuated from the crash scene and the fire had been completely under control. Video aired by Iran's English-language satellite channel showed that the cockpit of the Russian-made Il-62 plane, which was travelling from Tehran to Mashhad, was totally damaged. It was the second deadly air accident involving an Iranian airliner within 10 days. On July 15, a Caspian Airlines plane crashed near the northwestern city of Qazvin, killing all 168 people on board.
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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