Saturday, October 31, 2009 NEW YORK: This weekend is the 12th annual chocolate show in New York -- billed as the world's largest.There are more than 800 exhibits, including a chocolate bookstore, where famous chefs are signing chocolate cookbooks. There's also a chocolate lounge, featuring chocolate flavored liqueurs, coffees and snacks and a chocolate beauty pavilion that features products based on the cocoa bean.Hakan Martensson has a chocolate carving exhibit. He says it takes anywhere from one hour to a couple of months to carve a chocolate sculpture.One unusual offering at the show is a weeklong vacation at a lodge in the Belize rain forest, where one can learn to make chocolate.The chocolate show ends on Sunday.
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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