  The $\Xi$ baryons are expected to be naturally narrower as compared to their
nonstrange and strange counterparts since they have only one light quark and,
thus, their decay involves producing either a light meson and doubly strange
baryon or both meson and baryon with strangeness which involves, relatively,
more energy. In fact, some $\Xi$'s have full widths of the order of even 10-20
MeV when, in principle, they have a large phase space to decay to some open
channels. Such is the case of $\Xi (1690)$, for which the width has been found
to be of the order of 10 MeV in the latest {\it BABAR} and BELLE data. In this
manuscript we study why some $\Xi$'s are so narrow. Based on a coupled channel
calculation of the pseudoscalar meson-baryon and vector meson-baryon systems
with chiral and hidden local symmetry Lagrangians, we find that the answer lies
in the intricate hadron dynamics. We find that the known mass, width,
spin-parity and branching ratios of $\Xi (1690)$ can be naturally explained in
terms of coupled channel meson-baryon dynamics. We find another narrow
resonance which can be related to $\Xi(2120)$. We also look for exotic states
$\Xi^{+}$ and $\Xi^{--}$ but find none. In addition we provide the cross
sections for $ \bar K \Lambda, \bar K \Sigma \rightarrow \pi \Xi$ which can be
useful for understanding the enhanced yield of $\Xi$ reported in recent studies
of heavy ion collisions.
