Tuesday, June 16, 2009 SANA’A: Nine missing foreigners – including three children – in Yemen have all turned up dead, said a Yemeni official Monday, apparently executed by their kidnappers.The nine foreigners, including seven German nationals, a Briton and a South Korean, disappeared last week while on a picnic in the restive northern Saada region of Yemen.The bodies were found by the son of a tribal leader in Noshour, east of the volatile Saada mountainous area of northern Yemen where the nine were abducted, the official said.The authorities had accused Shiite Zaidi rebels in Saada of seizing seven Germans, a British engineer and a South Korean woman teacher. The rebels denied the charge.The nine – among them three German children and two women nurses – belong to an international relief group that has worked at a hospital in Saada province for 35 years, an official said Sunday.There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the kidnapping – the latest in a string of abductions of foreigners in Yemen. In Berlin Chancellor Angela Merkel said she could not confirm the report of deaths of hostages.“We know of this information. We are pressing ahead for examination of this information. For the moment, I cannot give any confirmation,” she said.South Korea’s foreign ministry also said it had no information and was checking the report. Seoul had confirmed that a 34-year-old South Korean identified only by her family name Eom had been missing in yemen since Thursday evening.
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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