Alberto Contador wins Tour de France again

Monday, July 27, 2009 PARIS: Alberto Contador earned his second Tour de France victory after seeing out the 21st and final stage, won in stunning style by Manxman Mark Cavendish.Spaniard Contador held off Luxembourg's Andy Schleck with American Lance Armstrong edging out Bradley Wiggins. Wiggins equalled the best Tour finish by a Briton with his fourth place matching Robert Millar in 1984. Cavendish's win was his sixth of the 2009 Tour and he became the first Briton to win on the Champs Elysees. The 24-year-old, who now has 10 Tour stage wins to his name, was an easy winner in Paris.After almost 3,500km of racing over 21 stages in three weeks, Sunday's stage was a victory parade for Contador, who toasted his win with champagne as the peloton rode into Paris.

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US troops in Iraq head to Afghanistan

BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.

Cuba's world-famous cigar festival closes in Havana

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...

Berlin Celebrates the Day the Wall Fell

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 BERLIN: World leaders and partying Germans are descending on Berlin Nov. 9 to mark the 20th anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall was breachedIt is a day for celebrations and commemorations, for festivities and sober reflection. Berlin is marking 20 years since the fall of the Wall on Monday with a series of events, big and small. Leaders from around the world are descending on the German capital to help celebrate the momentous events of Nov. 9, 1989, a date that has come to symbolize the end of communism in Eastern Europe. The main focus of events will be the historic Brandenburg Gate, where 20 years ago, joyful East and West Berliners gathered together to dance on top of the wall and celebrate the sudden opening up of the Iron Curtain. The iconic gateway had once stood in the midst of no man's land, surrounded by barbed wire and machine guns. Now 20 years on, a concert and fireworks display will recall those heady moments. A line of 1,000 foam dominoe...

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