Thursday, November 26, 2009 JEDDAH: At least 24 people were reportedly killed and several injured in flash floods in Jeddah on Wednesday. Hundreds of homes and shops were flooded as streets turned into raging rivers.Altogether, some 70 millimeters of rain fell over the city in less than two hours — more than two-thirds of the Kingdom’s annual average rainfall.Jeddah Gov. Prince Mishaal bin Majed ordered an emergency control room to be set up to monitor the situation every 12 hours.In Abraq Al-Raghama district, near the university, entire families were forced onto their roofs to escape the rising floodwaters, polluted by sewage flushed out of the drains. As elsewhere in the city, the drainage system was unable to cope with the load of water. The city’s Civil Defense services were stretched to the limit to deal with the emergency. Throughout the day, boats and helicopters were brought in to help rescue people. By nightfall many victims were still on their roofs.In the city’s Safa district and other areas homes were without electricity from around 2 a.m. Wednesday. Residents contacted the emergency services of the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) who said the power would be restored within a couple of hours, but the lights were still out till 8 p.m. Residents complained that no one from SEC had shown up and they were sitting in candlelight. The torrential rain that drove into Jeddah from the southwest at the break of day, the first day of Haj, caused particularly severe disruption to traffic, as well as overfilling the drainage system. It caused manhole covers to lift and spew black fountains of raw sewage into the streets. Trees were uprooted and fell onto the streets, adding to the hazards. The northbound side of Madinah Road in the Al-Hamra district soon locked solid with traffic while flooding on Al-Malik Road forced vehicles into a single lane.
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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