Wednesday, October 28, 2009 WASHINGTON: Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the embattled Afghan president and a suspected drug trafficker, has been on the CIA payroll for most of the past eight years, The New York Times reported Tuesday. The US spy agency pays Karzai for a variety of services, the newspaper said, such as fielding recruits for an Afghan paramilitary force operating at the CIA's direction in and around his home city of Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold. He also helps the CIA contact and sometimes meet Taliban followers.Karzai, who is said to have ties to Afghanistan's lucrative illegal opium trade, has a "wide-ranging" relationship with the CIA, the Times said, citing US officials.
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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