Tuesday, October 13, 2009 AJACCIO: French authorities rescued six people who survived in the Mediterranean Sea for more than five hours Monday after their small plane crashed off the coast of Corsica, officials said. The first two survivors were found thanks to a distress beacon and were plucked from the choppy sea by a helicopter. They were treated for hypothermia at a beach before being taken to hospital, a medical source said. A third person was rescued later by an army helicopter. The last three survivors were found at 10:00 pm near a lifeboat that was dropped by a reconnaissance aircraft, according to the rescue operations centre in the Corsican city of Ajaccio. The plane was flying from Propriano in southern Corsica to the French Riviera city of Cannes when it crashed in the sea in the Gulf of Porto. The pilot, who is in his 50s, reported engine failure to air control and announced he would try to land in the sea one hour after take-off, officials said.
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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