Friday, December 25, 2009 LIMA: A passenger bus plunged into a ravine in the high Andes of southern Peru on Thursday, killing at least 40 people and wounding some 10 others, police said.Authorities said more than 50 people were aboard when the bus traveling between Arequipa, Peru's second largest city, and the town of Santo Tomas, near Cusco, veered off the road and tumbled 200 meters (yards) down a mountainside, police captain Juan Suarez said. "There are 40 dead at the moment and I don't have the exact number of wounded, there are about 10," Suarez told media, adding that the crash occurred early Thursday about 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) from the capital Lima. Suarez said the bus left late Wednesday and had been traveling to Santo Tomas, a peasant village in Chumbivilca province, when it crashed. Highway police General Enrique Medrie told reporters that "there were reports of overcrowding of passengers," with a travel crush common on Christmas Eve.Edilberto Tenquipa of the Espinar fire company near the crash site said police and fire brigades were at the scene seeking to transfer the wounded to hospital, but that rescue efforts were difficult. "The rains that fell this morning and a possible mechanical failure may have caused the crash," Tenquipa told media. Peru's public transport sector suffers from a lack of regulation, and deadly accidents are common. Buses involved in crashes are routinely found to have had mechanical problems, and the country's roads, notably in the Andes mountains, are in poor condition.
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...
Comments