Saturday, October 24, 2009 KENNEBUNKPORT: Shiloh Pepin, a girl born with a rare condition often called "mermaid syndrome," has died. She was 10.Maine Medical Center spokesman John Lamb said Shiloh died at the hospital Friday afternoon. She had been hospitalized in critical condition since last week.Shiloh was born with sirenomelia, meaning her legs were fused from the waist down. She had no lower colon or genital organs and only one partially working kidney. Doctors told her parents that she would likely survive for only hours, maybe days.Some children who have survived sirenomelia have had surgery to separate their legs, but Shiloh's circulatory system made that challenging because crisscrossing blood vessels would have been severed.Her story has been featured on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and other national TV programs.
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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