Monday, September 21, 2009 TOKYO: Around 100 Japanese children spent their Saturday flying paper airplanes in a contest held in suburban Tokyo.'We organised this contest to let our children get experiences in handcrafting things so that they become interested in craftsmanship at their early age and later become professional craftsmen,' Fumihiro Uno, the secretariat of Japanese Paper Airplane Association, says.30 teams, each with three members, participated in the event - seeing who could keep their plane airborne for the longest time.The country has a long and proud history of paper plane flying prowess, with nine out of the top-ten longest glides set by the Japanese.
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...
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