Saturday, November 28, 2009 BEIJING: Ten passengers died on Saturday when a bus caught caught fire in China's northeastern province of Heilongjiang, a local news agency reported. The agency cited emergency officials in Zhaoyuan county as saying the driver of the bus had detected something wrong and stopped the vehicle before the blaze broke out. Seven people managed to escape the bus, which had been in operation for only one month. It was the latest in a series of bus disasters in China. On November 13, 13 people were killed when a tour bus veered off a bridge and plunged into the sea in the eastern province of Shandong. In June an unemployed 62-year-old man set fire to a bus in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, killing 27 passengers and injuring 74, state media reported.
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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