Sunday, November 15, 2009 LEEUWARDEN: The eleventh edition of Domino Day, organized by Endemo Netherlands together with Robin Paul Weijers, known as "Mr Domino", has come to a successful conclusion. The world record for toppling dominoes has been broken, with 4,491,863 dominoes biting the dust. The standing world record was 4,345,027 dominoes, also set by Mr Domino in 2008. This year's event involved displays representing different continents. Mr Domino laboured for a year over the various patterns and techniques. A team of 90 builders from 14 European countries worked for two months to set the stage in a hall in the northern Netherlands town of Leeuwarden. They came from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Greece, Germany, The Netherlands, Bulgaria, Croatia and Switzerland. The task called for total concentration and no little discomfort, as team members placed the dominoes in position. With each millimetre counting, they used rulers and tweezers to ensure each stone was in its exact spot. The first stone toppled just after 2000GMT (2100 local time) triggering a one-and-half-hour-long chain reaction, during which dominoes climbed stairs, unveiled paintings and set off a variety of surprise events.
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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