Monday, November 02, 2009 SYDNEY: More than 20 people were feared dead on Monday after a boat carrying about 40 sank in rough seas far off northwest Australia during a rescue attempt by a passing merchant ship and fishing vessel. Defence chief Angus Houston said the unidentified boat capsized and then sank after the LNG Pioneer ship and Taiwanese fishing craft responded to pleas for help in a remote area off Australia's Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean. It was not confirmed whether the boat was one of dozens of people-smuggling vessels that have headed to Australia this year carrying more than 1,700 asylum-seekers, many of them from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. "I understand when the first ship got there, this vessel was still intact," Houston said. "Somehow or other during the process of interaction between the ship and trawler and also the stricken vessel, there's been a capsize and people ended up in the water."Some 17 people were rescued by scrambling aboard life-rafts thrown out by the LNG Pioneer, which was sailing to Western Australia when it diverted course to help the stricken boat.
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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