Tuesday, September 01, 2009 LOS CABOS: Hurricane Jimena grew into a highly dangerous storm as it raced toward Mexico's Baja California peninsula on Monday, scaring tourists, prompting residents to sandbag homes and disrupting a top-level finance conference. Jimena's winds strengthened to nearly 155 mph (250 kph), almost reaching the threshold of a deadly Category 5 storm, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Category 5 hurricanes are the top of the Saffir-Simpson intensity scale and can be devastating if they hit land. Caterina Acevedo in Los Cabos, a lively resort area at the tip of the peninsula. "This one is really scary but when I tried to leave there were no seats on the planes," she added. Much of Baja California is sparsely populated desert and mountains that are popular with nature lovers, surfers, sport fishermen and retirees. Los Cabos, which is more built up,attracts tourists to its golf courses, resorts and beaches.
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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