BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spain will play the United States and Argentina in a pre-Olympic warm-up event that marks the 20th anniversary of the famous "Dream Team" arrival.
The three countries will play a round-robin style tournament at Palau Sant-Jordi, starting July 22. Spain will face the United States in a Beijing Olympic …
Greek fire officials say three people have died in a blaze that broke out at an Athens bank during rioting over government austerity measures.
An estimated 100,000 people took to the streets Wednesday during a nationwide wave of strikes against spending cuts aimed at saving the country from bankrupty.
Protesters were hurling Molotov cocktails at police and buildings. At least two buildings were on fire, while hundreds of people were involved in the clashes.
The government agreed to drastic budget cuts to win bailout loans from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for …
Goldie V. Adkins
SPURLOCKSVILLE - Goldie V. Adkins, 88, of Spurlocksville died June30, 2003. Service will be 11 a.m. Thursday, July 3, at Koontz FuneralHome, Hamlin. Friends may call one hour prior to service. Burial willbe in Bear Branch Cemetery, Spurlocksville.
Edward Anderson
CALDWELL - Edward Anderson, 67, of Caldwell died June 30, 2003.Service will be 1 p.m. Thursday, July 3, at Morgan Funeral Home,Lewisburg. Friends may call from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday.
Melvin Bishop
PETERSTOWN - Melvin Bishop, 79, of Peterstown died July 1, 2003.Service will be 10 a.m. Thursday, July 3, at Resthaven Memorial Park,Princeton. Friends may call from 6 to 9 p.m. …
An Islamic charity's lawsuit challenging the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program cannot move forward because a key piece of evidence is protected as a state secret, a federal appeals court ruled.
The lawsuit, filed by the Oregon-based U.S. arm of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, alleged the National Security Agency illegally listened to its calls. The charity had wanted to introduce as evidence a top-secret call log they received mistakenly from the Treasury Department.
But the three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Friday the log could not be used because it fell under the "state secrets" privilege …
The joke is no longer on Cleveland, with fish, jet skis, kayakers and boaters returning to the river that caught fire and helped spur the national environmental movement.
Floating oil and debris ignited by sparks on June 22, 1969, created an indelible impression of a burning Cuyahoga River that became a standing joke and a symbol of urban decay and runaway pollution.
The city held a good-humored 40th anniversary celebration on Monday to highlight the improved water quality. The civic celebration included "smoked" and "fire-roasted" menu specials by the Great Lakes Brewing Co., whose taproom staples include Burning River pale ale.
…
Chop wood? Yes, I do. Mow the lawn? Of course. I alsofertilize and weed it. Paint the house? More than that. I did alot of the masonry, cabinet work, flooring and construction. I alsodid the landscaping.
I keep a vegetable garden and can everything I grow. I sew anddesign my own patterns.
I've made the curtains and draperies for our home and they lookas good as any I've seen in the stores.
I love crafts, including making dolls for little girls, and I'ma nurturing, attentive mother to our three sons. I'm a den …
WASHINGTON - Prime Minister Gordon Brown traveled to the United States on Sunday, saying he planned to use the official visit to strengthen what Britain already considers its "most important bilateral relationship."
"It is a relationship that is founded on our common values of liberty, opportunity and the dignity of the individual," Brown said in a statement. "And because of the values we share, the relationship with the United States is not only strong, but can become stronger in the years ahead."
Brown, making his first visit to the U.S. as Britain's new leader, also denied speculation that the bilateral relationship was cooling.
His predecessor, Tony Blair, …
The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider throwing out the death sentence for a mentally impaired Alabama man who killed his former lover.
Holly Wood was convicted in the shooting death of his former girlfriend, Ruby Lois Gosha, in 1993. She was killed by a shotgun blast to her head as she slept in her home in Troy, Ala.
A federal judge tossed out the death sentence on the basis of the poor performance of Wood's lawyer in the sentencing phase of his trial. The lawyer, …
KABUL Fierce street battles erupted here Sunday between rivalmujaheddin guerrillas in an escalating struggle to win control of theAfghan capital.
Dozens of guerrillas and civilians were killed or wounded asforces loyal to rebel commander Ahmed Shah Masood battled downtownnear the presidential palace and in the slums of the city center inan effort to drive forces loyal to radical Muslim leader GulbuddinHekmatyar out of Kabul.
The Afghan capital fell Saturday to a swarm of divided rebelfactions. Masood's forces appeared to have the upper hand, pushingthose of Hekmatyar out of the presidential palace, forcing them backfrom a key downtown fort and battling them to …
ATLANTA (AP) — An 18-year-old woman has been charged with breaking into the Atlanta home of filmmaker Tyler Perry.
Police said Perry's bodyguard caught Chloe Ware early Thursday morning, but two others escaped. A phone listing for Ware could not be found. It was …
Andre Berto withdrew Monday from his Jan. 30 fight with Shane Mosley, saying the strain of dealing with the earthquake that struck Haiti left him unable to fight.
Berto, who represented Haiti in the Athens Olympics, said he could not train properly for what was to be the biggest fight of his career.
"As a result of this disaster, I am mentally and physically exhausted and therefore I have no choice but to withdraw from my bout," Berto said in a statement.
The move could open up a much bigger fight matching Mosley against Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Promoter Richard Schaefer said Monday he was already working on trying to make a …
Here's the second installment in our roundup of upcoming networkand cable holiday specials. Whether you're a purist seeking out thatone-time-only airing of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" or a fanaticwho'll be feasting on "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" lateChristmas Eve, you're sure to find something that will make yourspirits bright.
Times and dates change, so be sure to check TV Prevue forupdated information. TODAY
9:30 a.m.: "Christmas at Eureeka's Castle" (NICK) Eureeka andher friends prepare for a Christmas celebration, but they run intotrouble.
11: "The Small One" (Disney) Animated. Told by his father thathe must give up his old donkey, a boy …
NEW YORK (AP) — A wannabe taxi driver admitted Monday he stalked Caroline Kennedy's daughter by deluging the college student and her parents with unwanted flowers, chocolates and romantic emails.
Naeem Ahmed, 41, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment and stalking charges in a deal that got him out of jail after about four months there. He was sentenced to 60 days he had already served.
"I am not a bad person," Ahmed said during a series of rambling remarks about his interest in Tatiana Schlossberg and her famous family. "I did it for respect. I did it for their love. I still respect them. I still love them unconditionally."
Representatives for Schlossberg's family weren't in court and didn't immediately return a telephone call about the developments, which spare the family the prospect of a trial.
Ahmed was accused of sending more than 40 messages to Schlossberg and her parents: Caroline Kennedy, the only surviving child of President John F. Kennedy, and Edwin Schlossberg, who designs museum exhibits and other public spaces.
Over two years starting in October 2008, Ahmed sent Tatiana Schlossberg flowers, balloons and emails professing his love, sometimes addressing her as "hunny bunny" and signing off as her "hubby," prosecutors said in court documents. One electronic card featured such intimate images as bare skin and a rose-petal-strewn bed and bore an inscription that began, "I know you, I know the feeling of you," according to court documents.
Schlossberg, a Yale University student, was 18 when the messages started.
Her parents also got electronic cards, flowers, chocolates and messages, including an email asking them not to "involve anyone else" in "our very personal family matter," prosecutors said.
After Ahmed tried to visit the Schlossbergs at their New York City home in November 2009, their security firm told him to leave them alone, but the messages continued, according to court documents.
The Pakistani-born Ahmed, who was unemployed and studying for a taxi driver's license, was arrested in December. A psychiatric examination found him fit for trial.
Ahmed could have faced up to two years in prison had he been convicted. He pleaded guilty Monday after a judge told him the offer was an "unbelievable" deal. But first, Ahmed spent several hours conferring with his lawyer, consulting a friend and launching into disquisitions about his respect for the Constitution and the legal system, his fondness for the Schlossbergs and his concern for his future and the details of his three-year probation.
"I'm not emotional. I'm not crazy," he said. "I want to get out of this situation."
If he stays out of trouble for a year, he may be able to substitute a guilty plea to a noncriminal violation.
Ahmed said as he left court that he didn't believe he'd committed a crime but pleaded guilty because he believed it would please the Schlossbergs, whom he said he admired for their "family traditions" and "human values." He said he'd honor court orders to stay away from them but still believed he someday would be in their good graces.
"It's a matter of time," he said.
Caroline Kennedy has been a prominent supporter of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat whose office prosecuted the case. His office has said he recuses himself from cases only in very limited circumstances, such as those involving someone he represented while in private practice.
Caroline Kennedy, a lawyer and former chief fundraiser for New York City public schools, briefly pursued political office herself. In 2008, she announced she was interested in filling the U.S. Senate seat that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was vacating. Kennedy withdrew from consideration after little more than a month.
Keywords: aging; elders; seniors; age discrimination; ageism
So swiftly passes a year at my age. It seems only yesterday I was writing about "when I'm 64," and now, I have reached what is generally considered to be the traditional age of full retirement: 65, halfway through my seventh decade-one of those rites-of-passage birthdays, like 13 (if you are Jewish), 21 (legal adulthood), and 50 (the half-century mark), that rings with portent.
No denying it: I really am old now, although I have friends past 80 who will giggle at that statement.
I am always irritated when people say, "I don't feel 65" (or 70 or 75 and so forth). Of course they do. Since not one of us knows what it feels like to be older than we are, whatever we feel is what that age feels like. Equally irritating are recent boomer slogans such as "50 is the new 30." Anyone who can't tell the difference is a case of arrested development and a contributor to our youthcrazed, ageist culture. The downsides of becoming 65 have, so far, been minimal. I don't have the stamina and strength I once had and need to spread out chores and errands over longer periods of time. But I don't find that a burden. I like the extra walks necessary to finish shopping, and if it's harder to stay awake into the wee hours, I've known since my 20s that nothing noteworthy happens at the party past midnight. Famous and celebrated contemporaries who have defined the era in which I have lived die more frequently now: just last year, Richard Pryor, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Prince Rainier of Monaco, Hunter Thompson, Arthur Miller, Johnny Carson, and Betty Friedan. Youngsters who know these people only historically probably can't grasp the force with which each one, at the peak, etched his or her sensibility on the public consciousness of the second half of the 20th century. But that was then, and this is now.
In recent years, the rightness of death makes more sense to me. Those scientists who spend millions researching life extension, predicting 200-year life spans one day, are selfish and wrong. Elders must make way for younger people who are unencumbered by attachments to the past and are a better match to new times, new eras, and new issues.
The upsides of getting older far outweigh the negatives. I am more patient with myself and others. Experience has alleviated the fears that plagued my 20s, 30s, and even 40s. Having learned that, aside from putting a gun to one's head, few decisions are irrevocable, they come more easily now and with less anguish. Well, maybe not all decisions. This turned out to be a significant year. Settling in New York City in 1969 was a childhood dream, and in a sense, all 28 years before were prelude. I have been extraordinarily happy living here, so much so that when I bought this cozy, little apartment 23 years ago on one of the prettiest streets in Greenwich Village, it felt so permanent that I told friends I would be taken out feetfirst-it was my last move.
We should be wary of asserting such absolutes. At about this time last year, months of fruitless searching for work forced me to rethink that pronouncement. I agonized for weeks about what I knew was inevitable, and then, in a long, sleepless weekend spent pacing, weeping, and shaking my fist at the gods and the insidious bigotry of age discrimination in the workplace, I made a hard-won decision to sell my apartment and move to a less expensive part of the country.
I had many months to make peace with that decision, as it took longer to sell my apartment than either the real estate agent or I expected. Now, with my New York home at last sold, I am eager to begin my next adventure in a new place.
Already, I have the core of a personal community in Portland, Maine. Packing cartons arrived this week. Moving day is set, with settling into a new home to begin a week or so later. And what a relief that will be. My life has been disordered and disorderly for nearly 6 years. The dot-com at which I was employed collapsed abruptly in mid-2000 owing me (still) $25,000. I was unemployed that time for 14 months, and the job I eventually found required a 4-hour daily commute, leaving no time or energy for a personal life for 2 1/2 years.
For nearly a year after I was laid off from that job, I beat my head against the wall of a bad job market and age discrimination until this decision to leave New York, and then I waited 7 months for the sale of my apartment. Some downtime and routine will be a welcome change.
We celebrate holidays to remind us of our common history or our faith. Anniversaries and birthdays mark time, allowing us to take stock of the recent past, to renew our commitments to ourselves and others, and to create new beginnings. It is hard sometimes not to believe that the universe has its reasons, and it seems to me an excellent time to let go of one life and start another on such a momentous birthday as 65.
"For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away,
The sky is filled with stars invisible by day."
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Morituri Salutamus [1875]
Dubbed the "dean of older bloggers" by AARP, Ronni Bennett writes about what it's really like to get older on her popular elderblog, Time Goes By (http://timegoesby.net). Formerly a writer and producer for such television programs as 20/20 and The Barbara Walters Specials, and the first managing editor of cbsnews. com, Ms. Bennett has found her passion in exploring what it's really like to get older and bringing that message to the much younger blogosphere at technology conferences around the United States.
[Sidebar]
The upsides of getting older far outweigh the negatives.
2007 NATIONAL MEDAL OF SCIENCE AND NATIONAL MEDAL OF TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION
Two pioneering engineering educators were among eight recipients of the 2007 National Medal of Science, the nation's highest honor for science and engineering. Leonard Kleinrock of the computer department at the University of California, Los Angeles, was recognized for "fundamental contributions to the mathematical theory of modern data networks, including the functional specification of packet switching, which is the foundation of the Internet Technology." Andrew J. Viterbi, presidential chair of engineering at the University of Southern California, was recognized for "his development of the maximumlikelihood algorithm for convolution coding and for fundamental contributions to wireless technology."The National Medal of Science is awarded to individuals for pioneering scientific research and technologies "that give the United States its global economic edge."
Two chemical engineering professors from the University of Texas at Austin were among the six individuals honored as the 2007 National Medal of Technology and Innovation Laureates, the nation's highest award for technological achievement. Adam Heller, whose work enabled the creation of the painless glucose monitor for diabetics, was cited for "his contributions to electrochemistry and bioelectrochemistry, which led to the development of products that have improved the quality of life of millions, particularly in the area of human health and well-being." C. Grant Willson, who holds the Rashid Engineering Regents Chair at the Cockrell School of Engineering, and is an active ASEE member, was cited for "creating lithographic imaging materials and techniques that have enabled the manufacturing of smaller, faster and more efficient micro-electronic components."
Ben Streetman, dean of the Cockrell School of Engineering commended the two engineers for their "unprecedented consistency and creativity," 'and careers spent besting their own breakthroughs. "Their pioneering ability to link disciplines taught a new generation of researchers the value of reaching outside of their knowledge base to solve problems." He concluded, 'It has been a great privilege of my career to witness their simultaneous contribution to research, education and society."
2008 HAROLD W. MCGRAW JR. PRIZE IN EDUCATION
Richard Biais, vice president and cofounder of Project Lead the Way, was one of three recipients to be honored by the McGraw-Hill Companies with the 2008 Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education. The prize consists of a $25,000 award and a bronze sculpture. Winners are recognized for their dedication to enhancing U.S. education. This year's recipients were noted for "[making] it their life's work to influence the future by preparing students today," as well as for their "commitment toward bridging gaps to higher education and breaking down barriers faced by too many of today's young students." As a nonprofit organization dedicated to preparing high school students for university engineering education, PLTW has helped develop engineering curriculae in some 3,000 schools in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
BEIJING Russia and China forged a powerful new friendship Friday,signing 24 agreements ranging from pledges of mutual troop reductionsto joint nuclear energy projects and expanded economic ties, whichare meant to generate billions of dollars in trade.
"For the former Soviet Union, China was a potential enemy,"Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin said. "But today, for Russia, itis no longer a potential enemy."
Yeltsin acknowledged that other world powers, particularly theUnited States and Japan, could fear that a threatening, 1950s-styleChina-Soviet alliance is about to be revived. But they shouldunderstand, he said, that warmer ties between Russia and China do notthreaten the rest of the world.
"They could react jealously, but there can be no basis forthat," Yeltsin said. "We have equal cooperation. And I think herethe United States and Japan will understand" that Russia and Chinaare only seeking to further their own national interests.
Yeltsin, the man who delivered the death blow to Sovietcommunism, and the staunchly Communist Chinese leadership pointedlyavoided the ideological questions that led to the poisonousChinese-Soviet rift of the 1960s and 1970s. Yeltsin made no commenton China's human rights record.
Instead, Russian officials emphasized the tremendous vistas forcooperation across the world's longest border and the stabilizingeffect an alliance could have.
"This is a major new stage in world politics that will influencethe 21st century, as well," said Vyacheslav Kostikov, Yeltsin'sspokesman. "We're moving toward multipolar politics," in whichRussia cultivates friends wherever it can, rather than concentratingon superpower relations and contacts with Europe.
Chinese officials, though far less forthcoming than theirRussian counterparts, expressed unreserved enthusiasm about Yeltsin'sthree-day visit. Premier Li Peng promised Yeltsin that "No matterhow the situation changes, China will develop long-standing, stableand friendly relations of cooperation with Russia," Foreign Ministryspokesman Wu Jianmin said.
Latin American aboriginal group visits Canada's First Nations to learn and fellowship
A year after members of Hollow Water First Nation in central Manitoba travelled to Paraguay for the Mennonite World Conference (MWC) assembly and a subsequent tour of indigenous colonies, two Latin American indigenous representatives came north for a similar visit.
Alina Itucama, from the Wounaan tribe just outside of Panama City, Panama, and Brigido Loewen, from the Lengua (Enhlet) tribe of Pesempoo in the Paraguayan Chaco, toured central and northern Manitoba aboriginal communities from July 12 to 16.
The tour was led by Edith and Neill von Gunten, Mennonite Church Canada Native Ministry co-directors and former pastors at Riverton Fellowship Circle and Manigotagan Community Chapel, where they stopped for visits. The tour also included stops at Hollow Water and Cross Lake First Nations.
The two different groups learned that they have a great deal in common, although they may have different ways of connecting to the earth and to the creator.
What stood out for Itucama was that both people groups struggle when it comes to land rights. "Here, there is a struggle with land rights," she noted. "Where I'm from, it's tough to get the land title because the government wants to take it away."
Loewen, like many First Nations people in Canada, struggled with alcohol abuse. He is now sober and spends his time teaching elementary school and recording Christian music in his community.
According to Norman Meade, who works with Mennonite Central Committee Manitoba's Aboriginal Neighbours program and is actively involved with the Manigotagan Community Chapel just outside of Hollow Water First Nation, aboriginals from North and Latin America "have a physical connection because ofthe land, but now we also have a spiritual connection because we have learned about one another."
Loewen and Itucama were presented with star blankets at their second stop in Manigotagan. Their star blankets symbolize a burgeoning relationship between the two people groups. To the Ojibways at Hollow Water, star blankets are gifts ofthe highest honour, given only very rarely.
[Author Affiliation]
STORY AND PHOTO BY RACHEL BERGEN
National Correspondent
MANITOBA
FLORIDA (29-9)
Reb
Player Min FG FT O-T A PF Pts
Wright 29 5-8 3-5 4-10 4 4 13
Miller 31 2-5 5-6 1-3 2 0 10
Haslem 28 10-12 7-7 2-2 0 4 27
Dupay 15 0-4 0-0 0-0 1 2 0
Hamilton 14 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
Nelson 26 4-10 0-0 1-4 3 1 11
Bonner 7 0-3 0-0 1-3 0 1 0
Weaks 22 1-3 0-0 1-1 1 2 3
Harvey 16 3-11 3-4 4-6 0 2 9
Parker 12 1-3 0-0 0-0 2 2 3
Team 1-1
Totals 200 26-60 18-22 15-30 13 19 76
Percentages .433 .818
MICHIGAN STATE (32-7)
Reb
Player Min FG FT O-T A PF Pts
Hutson 23 2-4 2-2 0-1 3 4 6
Peterson 32 7-14 4-6 1-2 5 3 21
Granger 34 7-11 2-2 2-9 1 2 19
Cleaves 31 7-11 1-1 0-2 4 1 18
Bell 33 3-6 2-3 3-8 5 2 9
Richardson 16 4-7 1-2 1-2 0 1 9
Anagonye 12 0-0 0-0 2-3 0 4 0
Chappell 7 2-4 0-0 1-1 0 0 5
Ballinger 7 1-1 0-0 0-0 0 2 2
Thomas 4 0-0 0-0 1-1 1 1 0
Ishiba 1 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Team 1-3
Totals 200 33-59 12-16 12-32 19 20 89
Percentages .559 .750
Florida 32 44 -76
Michigan State 43 46 -89
3-Point Goals - Florida, 6-18, .333 (Nelson 3-6, Weaks 1-1,Miller 1-2, Parker 1-3, Hamilton 0-1, Wright 0-1, Bonner 0-2, Dupay0-2), Michigan State, 11-22, .500 (Cleaves 3-4, Granger 3-5,Peterson 3-8, Bell 1-2, Chappell 1-3). Attendance - 43,116.
The popular uprisings in Arab nations should bury some long-standing Orientalist myths.
With the recent wave of popular uprisings in the Middle East, Western observers have had the chance to face up to an important realization: that the oldest of clich�s about Middle Eastern politics, "the Arab street," is both a pernicious myth and a dynamic reality. For decades, Orientalist stereotypes about Arab culture and attitudes imbued this so-called street - a crude and monolithic metaphor for Arab public opinion and popular political sentiment - with almost uniformly negative connotations, which would then segue into dire warnings about the consequences of its eruption. Now the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt and antigovernment protests in many other Arab states have demonstrated that the Arab street most certainly does exist - but it bears no resemblance to the bogeyman so long cultivated in the Western imagination.
Western commentators supplemented their hand-wringing about the Arab street with anxiety about "our Arab allies," generally autocrats whose rule was considered vital to American interests in the region: the maximization of US power and influence, the control and pricing of energy, Israeli security, and regional stability. It's true, of course, that the future complexion of the Arab political landscape remains uncertain, but the character of the rebellions has already been the strongest possible refutation of this traditional calculus and the mythology that misinformed it.
From the moment the Western imagination conjured the Arab street into being, it was populated by mobs of enraged, irrational, violent, and anti-Western religious fanatics, all bent on mayhem. This mythology has deep roots in Western misconceptions about the Arab world, as Edward Said famously demonstrated in his seminal 1978 study, Orientalism. Drawing on Michel Foucault's investigation of the nexus between knowledge and power, Said argued diat there exists an intimate connection between the presumed authority to define a subject and the assumed authority to rule that subject. Said explained that a key "dogma" of Orientalist thought "is that the Orient is at bottom something either to be feared ... or to be controlled." Under a carefully tended network of colonial oil fief doms and client states, Western strategists have essentially outsourced the task of control to autocratic but US-allied Arab governments. And in turn, these pro-Western autocrats have exploited the mythology of the Arab street to their own ends; die specter of a dangerous mass population barely held at bay helped them to cultivate their own claims to political legitimacy, while underwriting a decadent atmosphere of "Apr�s moi, le d�luge."
Beyond the fairly recent mydis of "realist" foreign policy, the Western image of die dangerous Arab masses actually harks back to the Middle Ages - in particular, the era's religious and political competition between Christendom (the precursor to modern Europe) and D�r al-Islam (from which the Arab world derives its identity), as Norman Daniel showed in his pioneering 1960 book, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image. Daniel's thesis was more recently taken up by John Tolan in the 2002 study Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination, which traced the centuries-old religious origins of an incorrigible "sentiment of Western superiority over Muslims and over Arabs."
Such traditional attitudes have routinely received new glosses in the Orientalist literature on what is purported to be a closed and rigidly change-averse "Arab mind. " This body of work usually bears the appearance of dispassionate cultural inquiry - but its authors are expressing essentially medieval anxieties about the mortal threat that Arab or Muslim power presents to the West. The Israeli right, in particular, has been adept at stoking such Western fears - most notoriously in the outrageous caricatures that Raphael Patai advanced in his 1 973 study, The Arab Mind. This absurd and insulting book has been continuously reprinted and, more disturbing still, has been used for "cultural training" by the US military, most disastrously in connection with the war in Iraq. David Pryce-Jones's influential 1989 tract The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs, meanwhile, reproduced much of Patai's patronizing hostility; Pryce-Jones pathologized all Arab culture indiscriminately, suggesting that it dooms its unfortunate adherents to suffer self-inflicted oppression and exploitation. Similarly, Lee Smith's dreadful 2010 misreading of Arab politics, The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations, unapologetically asserted that in Arab culture, might makes right, and that since "violence is central to the politics, society and culture" of the Arabs, not only will brutality always prevail but "Bin Ladenism . . . represents the political and social norm."
Irshad Manji's militantly ignorant screed The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith (2004) actually argued that Arabs played virtually no role in the golden age of Islamic civilization - a position akin to asserting that the peoples of Italy played no role in Roman culture. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof picked up on her obsession with sand, contending that there is a distinction between the Middle East's "desert Islam," which he says is a problem, and Southeast Asia's "riverine or coastal Islam," which supposedly is not. This line of thinking grows out of a misguided tendency to rescue Islam from the Arabs, when in fact Islam sprang from Arab culture, an Arab "prophet," and a "holy book" in Arabic. Islam itself, diese people argue, is not the problem - it's the Arab progenitors of the faith and their sandy, impoverished, nasty culture.
The uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia should put paid to such rubbish once and for all. Any serious, honest appraisal of what is spreading throughout the Arab world refutes every aspect of this pernicious mythology. Certainly, the size, scope, and bravery of the demonstrations for democracy, good governance, and accountability mean that no one can continue flogging the Orientalist shibboleth that Arabs are inherently resistant to change - at least not with a straight face. Likewise, the idea diat Arab political culture is inherently violent has been most eloquently debunked by the extraordinarily self-disciplined nonviolence of the protesters in Egypt and Tunisia - in spite of extreme provocation and abuses by the police and government-paid hooligans.
The allied Orientalist idea that Arabs are culturally lacking social consciousness cannot survive the spontaneous creation of an ad hoc social order under the most difficult circumstances in Cairo's Tahrir Square and elsewhere in Egypt and Tunisia. Demonstrators banded together to protect one another - especially Muslims and Christians at prayer. They also joined forces to defend institutions such as the National Museum, create neighborhoodwatch committees to prevent looting and banditry, provide medical care, and so forth. After the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak and a night of delirious celebrations, the Egyptian protesters even returned to the square and cleaned it up, handing it over to the country's provisional new military authorities in almost pristine condition.
Consider, by contrast, how events in Egypt might have unfolded had the Western stereotype of the Arab street possessed any real explanatory power: The demonstrations in Cairo would have been violent and chaotic - and driven by religious fanaticism. But Islamism and religious identity played almost no role in the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings; indeed, these supposed prime movers of Arab culture and politics haven't been particularly evident in the region's other mass protests, with the exception of Jordan. It wasn't Islamism diat brought millions of Arabs out into the streets to demand change. Rather, these protests were the product - and, just as important, the expression - of national consciousness, uniting Christians and Muslims, die devout and the skeptical, and a range of urban social classes, from the upper middle class to the working poor.
Islamists may be hoping to gain from new political openness and elections, but their rhetoric and symbolism have been almost absent from the Arab uprisings. Orientalist stereotypes have long discounted die importance of national identity and sentiment - and social consciousness more generally - in the Arab world. But the recent secular and ecumenical agitations for political reforms have shown the true, unsuspected reach of nationalist movements in the region - and their ability to motivate millions of ordinary Arabs across the urban social spectrum to risk all for change.
Nor have the demonstrations been anti-Western, even though most of the governments being challenged are US client states. Indeed, in a subordinate irony no Orientalist text could ever account for, anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-Semitic sentiments have been almost entirely the provenance of beleaguered pro-Western governments. The Mubarak regime blamed "foreign elements" for the Egyptian unrest, implying that Iranian, Israeli, and American forces were secredy at work, and Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh has accused Israel and the United States of orchestrating the demonstrations in his country. The uprisings were not driven by, but did utilize, Western social media and ideals about democracy, and the protestors did issue many appeals for Western action and support, as well as some expressions of disappointment. Thus far, these Arab revolutionary movements have been for themselves and not against anyone, other than the autocrats in dieir own countries.
However, Arab protestors do share one central grievance that should be of urgent concern to Western policy makers: resistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestine that began in 1967. Some Western commentators seem determined to juxtapose the movement for selfdetermination within autocratic Arab states with the struggle against the occupation - and to argue, nonsensically, that because Arabs are willing to demand their own freedom, this somehow means they don't care about the Palestinian cause. Israeli right-wingers and their American neoconservative allies have been flailing away vigorously at this straw man - but either they're being deliberately deceptive or they're not paying attention to what the protesters and Arab public opinion are saying about Israel and the Palestinians. There is no question diat the Israeli occupation is still the prism of pain through which most Arabs view international relations - and diat they are passionate about the cause of Palestinian freedom. The rash of Palestinian denialism on the right also doesn't logically square with concomitant anxieties about the future of Israel's peace treaty with Egypt. There is no indication of any plausible future Egyptian government abrogating the treaty - but as the frequent alarums of hard-line Likud leaders demonstrate, the Israeli right knows very well that even though the Arab peoples are proving they're willing to fight for their own freedom with great bravery, that doesn't mean they withhold support from the cause of Palestinian independence and the campaign to end the occupation.
Old mydis die hard, when they die at all, but important correctives were on offer to American readers even before the wave of Arab protests ignited. Indeed, one such reappraisal came from an impeccably neoconservative source, Joshua Muravchik in the 2009 book The Next Founders: Voices of Democracy in the Middle East, a revealing set of profiles of next-wave and reformist Arab leaders. Not all of the subjects featured in Muravchik's case studies are necessarily the cream of the crop, but The Next Founders raised the critical point that beyond die myths and before the uprisings, serious liberal reform was afoot in Arab political thought and life.
Probably the most significant work explaining how Arab reformers were gaining momentum (and helping to set the stage for the current uprisings) was Marwan Muasher's 2008 The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation. Muasher, a former foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Jordan, deftly laid out the essential conundrum facing Arab reformers, one that may bedevil the process of change into the future. He rightly observed diat Arab societies require two essential principles: peace, in terms of resolving both internal disputes and regional struggles such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; and reform, based on inclusivity, accountability, and the rights of citizens, women, and minorities. As Muasher noted, the problem is that governments and elites committed to peace are typically afraid of reform - while opposition groups in favor of reform are often opposed to peace. Whether the current uprisings can unite these two principles remains to be seen, but Muasher invaluably aided that intellectual reckoning by laying out its fundamental terms.
The uprisings should portend an Arab social and political renaissance, and the popular spirit for such a rebirth is plainly evident. But there are still plenty of hazards ahead for Arab reform, including threats of military dictatorships, fragmented or failed states, and die emergence of tyrannical majorities in unrestrained parliamentary democracies. There is nothing to be gained by rushing to replace dystopian and alarmist myths about the menacing Arab street with Utopian and triumphalist celebrations of it. But surely serious observers in the West can find the time to let the image of a secular, reform-minded - and, above all, peaceful - Arab street sink in. Once the old myth of the Arab street, with all its stereotyped connotations, is retired, we can look ahead to a time when mainstream thinkers in the West no longer get rewarded for casually pathologizing, demonizing, dismissing, and denigrating Arabs and dieir culture. After all, meaningful reform takes time - as the new generation of Arab reformers, the ordinary citizens themselves, can well attest.
[Sidebar]
The idea that Arab political culture is inherently violent has been most eloquently debunked by the extraordinarily self-disciplined nonviolence of protesters in Egypt and Tunisia.
[Author Affiliation]
Hussein lblsh is a senior research fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine and blogs at ibishblog.com.
Rangers have dropped their interest in Kilmarnock striker StevenNaismith after having four offers turned down for the Scotlandinternational.
Ibrox boss Walter Smith said: "We have withdrawn the offer. Ican't make it clearer than that.
"We can't come to an agreement with Kilmarnock, so that's itfinished."
SCOTLAND midfielder Darren Fletcher is a pounds6million target forPremiership new boys Birmingham City.
However, United boss Sir Alex Ferguson is more likely to let the23-year-old leave on a year-long loan deal.
DUNDEE United have swooped for former Ajax youngster PrinceBauben. The 19-year-old Ghana midfielder has signed a three-yeardeal.
BLACKBURN Rovers got their season off to a winning start afterbeating FK Vetra 2-0 in the first leg of their Intertoto Cup firstround tie.
Benni McCarthy and Matt Derbyshire were on target in Lithuania.
RELEASED Aberdeen midfielder Jamie Winter has signed a two-yeardeal with English League Two side Chesterfield.
ARGENTINA came from behind to beat Czech Republic 2-1 in the finalof the FIFA U20 World Cup in Toronto. Mauro Zarate and Sergio Aguerowere on target.
FORMER Scotland star Don Hutchison has joined Luton Town on trial.
A military court heard conflicting testimony Wednesday as to whether a U.S. Army sergeant helped kill four Iraqis who were bound, blindfolded, shot and dumped in a Baghdad canal last year.
Two witnesses at the hearing differed in their accounts of what happened, with one saying he saw Sgt. 1st Class Joseph P. Mayo and two others _ Sgt. Michael P. Leahy Jr. and Sgt. John E. Hatley _ standing behind the four Iraqis facing the canal and saw them fire their weapons.
Another witness said he did not see anyone being shot.
Sgt. Daniel Evoy testified that he saw the three men with the four detainees _ on their knees and facing the canal _ and that he saw Leahy fire the first shot, then a detainee "slump to the ground."
Evoy said he told his driver that "I can't believe they shot them."
Evoy told the courtroom and Army judge Lt. Col. Erik Christiansen that both Mayo and Hatley had walked up to him earlier and said they intended to kill the four Iraqis.
"We didn't believe them. We thought 'Yeah, whatever,'" Evoy testified. "We thought we'd just let them go."
But Spc. Jonathan Shaffer testified that he did not see Mayo at all.
"I did not see Mayo shooting the detainees. I have no evidence of Mayo shooting," Shaffer said in response to questioning. "Sgt. Mayo never told me not to talk about the incident and he never talked to me about the incident."
Mayo, 27, is charged with one count each of premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit premeditated murder and obstruction of justice in the spring 2007 incident. He is the sixth of seven soldiers implicated in the case to face a judge and faces a possible life sentence without parole if convicted in a trial.
The Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a civilian grand jury, will assess the charges against Mayo and decide whether to refer him for a court-martial.
Mayo has already been implicated by other soldiers who were on the patrol. All soldiers involved were with the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, which is now part of the Germany-based 172nd Infantry Brigade.
According to testimony, four Iraqis were taken into custody after a shootout with insurgents and taken to the U.S. unit's operating base near Baghdad. Later that night, according to testimony, members of the patrol took the four men to a remote location and killed them in retribution for attacks against the soldiers' unit.
The U.S. military did not give a specific date, saying only that the killings occurred between March 10 and April 16, 2007.
Spc. Steven Ribordy, 25, of Salina, Kansas, testified at his court-martial in October that he saw Mayo, Leahy Jr. of Lockport, Illinois, and Hatley, 40, at the scene of the killings and smelled gunpowder in the air.
Ribordy pleaded guilty to accessory to murder at his court-martial and was sentenced to eight months in prison. He received a bad conduct discharge from the Army as part of a plea deal.
In September, Spc. Belmor Ramos, 23, of Clearfield, Utah, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder and was sentenced to seven months in prison and given a dishonorable discharge.
Ramos and Ribordy were in the same Humvee on the patrol when the killings took place, Ribordy testified. Both have agreed to testify for the prosecution at upcoming trials.
In August, the Army held Article 32 hearings investigating the involvement of Staff Sgt. Jess Cunningham, 27, of Bakersfield, California, and Sgt. Charles Quigley, 28, of Providence, Rhode Island, in the incident.
The Army said Nov. 17 it had found enough evidence to take those men to a court-martial on charges of conspiracy to commit premeditated murder, though it hasn't announced a date for the trials. Cunningham and Quigley could face possible life sentences without parole if convicted.
Both Leahy and Hatley waived their rights to an Article 32 hearing but no date has been set for their separate court-martials. Both face charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and obstruction of justice stemming from the killings in spring 2007, and both face a possible life sentence without parole if convicted.
Leahy also faces additional charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and accessory to murder after the fact for a separate incident in January 2007. The Army has not provided further details on that incident.
Hatley also faces another murder and conspiracy to commit murder charge stemming from the same January 2007 incident.
A series of private meetings have marked the wrangling over themayor's job, with the latest held Tuesday night in a closed sessionin a room behind City Council chambers.
The question of whether such meetings violate the Illinois OpenMeetings Act was raised by the Better Government Association, whichfiled suit in Cook County Circuit Court to block a Council vote onacting mayor.
About 27 aldermen met in the closed session Tuesday, hours afterthe association went to court contending other meetings violated theletter and spirit of the law, passed to prevent elected officialsfrom conducting government business in private.
The suit, filed against all 50 aldermen, seeks a court order toprevent any vote for an acting mayor "based upon deliberations heldin secret."
The law states that, except for certain exceptions, it is illegalfor "a majority of the quorum" to meet. For the 50-member CityCouncil, that means 14 members.
The intent of the law spelled out in the statute is to ensurethat the "people's business" must "be taken openly and that (publicbodies') deliberations be conducted openly." The Better Government Association did not succeed Tuesday ingetting an emergency order barring the Council meeting. A hearing onthe lawsuit is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. today.
Ald. Edwin Eisendrath (43rd), who was at some of thecontroversial meetings, was subpoenaed by the association but said"they would have to come take me" before he would go to court.
The Cook County state's attorney is charged with enforcing theOpen Meetings Act. Spokesman Terry Levin said no official complaintshave been lodged with the office.
More than 14 black aldermen met Friday night in the presidentialcampaign headquarters of Democratic candidate Jesse Jackson at 30 W.Washington to discuss succession matters.
The next day, more than 14 white aldermen met at the NorthwestSide home of Ald. Joseph S. Kotlarz Jr. (35th) to talk about themayoralty.
Sunday, 16 aldermen caucused in the headquarters of Ald. KathyOsterman, 5457 N. Broadway. Later that day, 22 met again atKotlarz's home.
On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, aldermen brushed asidesuggestions of law violations.
However, on Saturday and Sunday, aldermen said they thought theywere getting around the law by sending other aldermen to adjacentrooms to keep the group under 14.
UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Security Council agreed Wednesday to an Iraqi request to extend the mandate of the U.S.-led multinational force after the country's foreign minister said the troops were "vitally necessary."
The council also strongly condemned the bombing of Samarra's revered Shiite shrine and urged all countries, especially those in the region, to support Iraq in its pursuit of peace.
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told the council members that despite the senseless violence "the government has made tremendous strides toward the day when security will be provided by a self-sufficient, Iraqi national security force."
"While Iraqis will always be grateful for their liberation from an absolute despot, no Iraqi government official - indeed, no Iraqi citizen - wants the presence of foreign troops on Iraqi soil one day longer than is vitally necessary," he said.
"But today, and for the foreseeable months at least, the presence of (multinational) troops is vitally necessary not only for Iraq but also to safeguard regional security and stability," Zebari said.
Last year the Security Council extended the force's mandate for a year starting Dec. 31, but authorized a review of the mandate by June 15.
Russia supported the extension of the multinational force's mandate but said the council must "signify the deadlines" of the foreign military presence in Iraq, which its ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, called a "serious irritant for many Iraqis."
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Iraqi security forces are undertaking a greater role, assuming main responsibility for security in seven provinces and taking the lead in operations to combat insurgents and militias.
But, he said, Iraq's success in promoting stability and consolidating its "young democracy" will depend not only on progress in the security sector but on advances in the economic field "and most importantly movement in the political arena."
Khalilzad said Iraqi security forces are critical to the push to pacify Baghdad. Since the U.S.-Iraqi operation began in February, Khalilzad said attacks against civilians and sectarian murders in the city have decreased while attacks against coalition forces and high-profile terrorist attacks are still frequent.
Taking a bleaker view of the Baghdad operation, Ashraf Qazi, the top U.N. envoy in Iraq, said that "progress has been slower and more uncertain than had been hoped for ..."
"Iraq is today faced with an exceptionally complex series of overlapping sectarian, political and ethnic conflicts that are beyond the capacity of any one actor or policy to resolve," he said. "This situation has contributed to a deepening sense of insecurity and pessimism among many Iraqis."
Both Qazi and Khalilzad said progress on national reconciliation is essential. While acknowledging that constructive discussions would be "very difficult" in the current environment, Qazi suggested the United Nations should play a bigger role in this area.
The United Nations has the "potential" to assist and develop national dialogue, regional cooperation on Iraq, and international support, Qazi said.
Russia's Churkin said that without international assistance for the political process, leaders of Iraq's different groups would not be able to overcome "the inertia" of mistrust.
Zimbabwe's main opposition party said Saturday that South African-mediated talks to ease a political and economic crisis have failed and that it will challenge the results of next month's elections.
The Movement for Democratic Change said that President Robert Mugabe violated the spirit of the dialogue by pressing ahead with the March 29 date for presidential and parliamentary elections _ and ignoring opposition demands for a delay.
The opposition party in a statement predicted the elections would not be free and fair and said it would take part with a "heavy heart."
"We hold the firm view that the 2008 elections ... cannot by any stretch of the imagination yield a legitimate outcome. Any statements to the contrary are extremely unfortunate," Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai said.
Mugabe, leader since independence from Britain in 1980, is expected to win the elections despite Zimbabwe's economic collapse and inflation rates topping 100,000 percent. The ruling party controls the broadcast and print media, the police and army, and stands accused of buying all-important rural votes through bribes and handouts.
Southern African leaders last year appointed South African President Thabo Mbeki as mediator, despite opposition concerns about his policy of quiet diplomacy rather than public criticism toward Mugabe.
The opposition party said Mugabe had spurned Mbeki's overtures to level the electoral playing field and to meet directly with Tsvangirai. Mbeki's reports to the South African Development Community, which declared the negotiations as a success, were whitewash, the party said.
Retired Air Force Sgt. Mark Evans wanted to send a taste of Chicago to troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So he's doing it deep-dish pizza-style.
The Elk Grove Village man has arranged for thousands of pizzas to be frozen, packed in dry ice and shipped to the Middle East in time for the Fourth of July. His 16-year-old son, Kent, came up with the idea.
"I think it's good for them. They're in too good of shape," he joked.
Evans said DHL Global has volunteered to ship the pizzas that Lou Malnati's Pizzeria offered at a special rate. He hopes to get as many as 3,000 pizzas to the troops with the "Pizzas 4 Patriots" program.
"It's saying 'here's a taste of home,'" Lou Malnati's spokeswoman Mindy Kaplan said.
But Kaplan suspects there might be some soldiers who won't feel that way.
"Maybe New Yorkers won't like it so much," Kaplan said.
The International Whaling Commission criticized environmental activists protesting Japan's whaling fleet, accusing them Saturday of threatening safety at sea.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and other anti-whaling groups have repeatedly harassed the Japanese whaling fleet to interfere with its hunt.
The whaling commission "called upon the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to refrain from dangerous actions that jeopardize safety at sea, and on vessels and crews concerned to exercise restraint".
"The commission and its contracting governments do not condone and in fact condemn any actions that are a risk to human life and property in relation to the activities of vessels at sea," it said in a statement.
Japan kills about 1,000 whales every year under what it calls a scientific research program. Critics call the Japanese program a cover for commercial whaling, which has been banned by the commission since 1986.
Japan has accused the activists of terrorist tactics and insists it only wants to take the types of whales that are plentiful.
On Friday, the Japanese coast guard said Sea Shepherd activists threw rotten butter and other objects at a Japanese whale-processing ship about 1,800 miles south-southwest of Melbourne, Australia, in the Antarctic Ocean.
The coast guard said its officers aboard the vessel responded by tossing "warning balls." Australia's foreign minister described the devices as "flash bangs," or stun grenades.
Despite the commission's rebuke, Sea Shepherd said it plans to continue its actions.
"This is the 21st century," said Paul Watson, captain of the group's Steve Irwin ship. "The IWC should be an organization to protect the world's whales from this barbaric practice."
"Here they are condemning us for throwing stink bombs, but the Japanese are attacking endangered whales in violation of an Australian court order _ they are no different to poachers."
The whaling commission also addressed worsening strains between its members.
Japan, Norway and Iceland lead a group keen to reintroduce commercial whaling, but other members, including Britain, remain firmly opposed. The polarization has made decision-making in the commission _ which is designed to conserve whale stocks and regulate the development of the whaling industry _ increasingly difficult.
The commission said it would consider using small negotiating groups, adopting cooling-off periods when problems arise and reducing the use of voting to help aid progress.
Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson says it will slash 2,000 jobs worldwide to cut costs.
Sony Ericsson spokeswoman Lisa Canning in London says the job cuts will be made within the next 12 months as part of a savings package.
Friday's announcement came as Sony Ericsson posted a 97 percent drop in second-quarter net profit and said it planned to cut operating costs by euro300 million a year.
Byline: Al Lewis Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer
Regulators are still crying fraud, but investors' dreams of a big gold strike panned out Wednesday as stock of Golden Eagle International Inc. rose as much as 460 percent.
The Securities and Exchange Commission suspended trading of stock in the tiny Denver-based mining company on June 19, warning that the company's bold claims of a world-class gold find in Bolivia may prove false.
But by Tuesday morning, the two-week suspension had expired and the stock was exploding. Shares rose from 31 cents to $1.75 before settling at 70 cents by the end of the day. In May, the stock had traded for as little as 8 cents.
Despite stern warnings from the SEC, investors' faith in Golden Eagle has not been shaken, especially among those sitting on tenfold gains.
``I didn't sell a penny's worth of stock,'' said Dallas investor Andr'e Nel, who purchased his stake long before the company began making its claims. ``Why would I want to cash out when this story hasn't even started yet?''
Golden Eagle President Terry Turner said he urges investors to be extremely cautious until the company's find can be more carefully scrutinized.
``Take a step back and don't get caught up in speculative buying,'' he said. ``If this stock is everything it's cracked up to be, it will be there a month from now, and it will be there a year from now.''
The SEC filed civil fraud charges against Golden Eagle and some of its officers in early May. The agency said the defendants issued false press releases to hype Golden Eagle stock and then dumped it upon unsuspecting investors between 1994 and 1996. Turner, who owns no stock in the company, was not named in that action.
On May 22, a few weeks after that announcement, Golden Eagle issued a press release saying it had a ``proven reserve'' of 6.43 million ounces and ``inferred resources'' of 157.4 million ounces of gold on 4,810 acres it controls in Cangalli, Bolivia. If the claims prove true, Golden Eagle will be sitting on the largest gold mine in the world and reserves worth billions.
As Golden Eagle stock rocketed out of penny stock territory on Tuesday, SEC investigator Bob Fusfeld said the agency still has concerns, but is limited as to how long it can halt trading. He would not comment further.
Meanwhile, Golden Eagle filed a report on Tuesday acknowledging that the SEC is considering fraud charges against the company for its May 22 press release.
Golden Eagle's filing, known as a Form 8-K Current Report, was highly cautionary.
It said the company is interviewing independent mining firms to audit the report of its geologist, Guido Paravacini, who is responsible for Golden Eagle's claims.
``There can be no assurance that a new independent firm will confirm any `reserves' or `mineralization' on the Cangalli concessions,'' the 8-K said.
The company also said that Paravacini's report is ``subject to substantial and material changes including the reduction or elimination of `reserves.' ''
The 8-K also warned that Golden Eagle:
* Has no experience operating large mines.
* Lacks capital to mine its property.
* Has not filed audited financial statements, including its 1997 annual report and its 1998 quarterly reports, because of accounting difficulties.
* Is considering a secondary stock offering of up to 10 million shares to raise money for open-pit mining.
Turner said Golden Eagle's 8-K report is not an about-face.
``We have our own beliefs, and we stated them in the May 22 press release,'' he said. ``We know what Paravacini said, but we can't ensure what another firm will find.''
Meanwhile, geologists eye Golden Eagle's claims with a heavy dose of skepticism.
``They've drawn a very large conclusion with limited data, and that's pretty bold,'' said Leigh Freeman, president of Orvana Minerals Corp., a Canadian-based company with offices in Denver. ``If their conclusions are accurate, it would be the largest gold deposit in the world.''
Freeman said a claim of 157 million ounces would have to be based on several thousand samples to be credible. Golden Eagle's find was based on 844 bulk samples and 2,900 assays.
Meanwhile, the largest gold mine in Bolivia produces only about 300,000 ounces of gold per year from a proven reserve of about 5 million ounces, Freeman said. And Newmont Gold Co., the largest gold mining company in North America, boasts gold reserves of only 53 million ounces worldwide.
``There simply hasn't been enough work done,'' said Ted Worthington, a geologist and reporter for The Northern Miner, a Canadian trade publication with offices in Denver.
In its June 8-14 edition, The Northern Miner analyzed Golden Eagle's claims and found them questionable.
``We found the size of the resource hard to credit and one of the reports that defined it less than convincing,'' it said. ``Your caution about this company is well-advised.''
CAPTION(S):
Color Photo
Terry Turner.
INVESTORS HIT JACKPOT IN GOLD AS SEC FRETS GOLDEN EAGLE STOCK SOARS AS TRADING SUSPENSION ENDS.(Business)Byline: Al Lewis Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer
Regulators are still crying fraud, but investors' dreams of a big gold strike panned out Wednesday as stock of Golden Eagle International Inc. rose as much as 460 percent.
The Securities and Exchange Commission suspended trading of stock in the tiny Denver-based mining company on June 19, warning that the company's bold claims of a world-class gold find in Bolivia may prove false.
But by Tuesday morning, the two-week suspension had expired and the stock was exploding. Shares rose from 31 cents to $1.75 before settling at 70 cents by the end of the day. In May, the stock had traded for as little as 8 cents.
Despite stern warnings from the SEC, investors' faith in Golden Eagle has not been shaken, especially among those sitting on tenfold gains.
``I didn't sell a penny's worth of stock,'' said Dallas investor Andr'e Nel, who purchased his stake long before the company began making its claims. ``Why would I want to cash out when this story hasn't even started yet?''
Golden Eagle President Terry Turner said he urges investors to be extremely cautious until the company's find can be more carefully scrutinized.
``Take a step back and don't get caught up in speculative buying,'' he said. ``If this stock is everything it's cracked up to be, it will be there a month from now, and it will be there a year from now.''
The SEC filed civil fraud charges against Golden Eagle and some of its officers in early May. The agency said the defendants issued false press releases to hype Golden Eagle stock and then dumped it upon unsuspecting investors between 1994 and 1996. Turner, who owns no stock in the company, was not named in that action.
On May 22, a few weeks after that announcement, Golden Eagle issued a press release saying it had a ``proven reserve'' of 6.43 million ounces and ``inferred resources'' of 157.4 million ounces of gold on 4,810 acres it controls in Cangalli, Bolivia. If the claims prove true, Golden Eagle will be sitting on the largest gold mine in the world and reserves worth billions.
As Golden Eagle stock rocketed out of penny stock territory on Tuesday, SEC investigator Bob Fusfeld said the agency still has concerns, but is limited as to how long it can halt trading. He would not comment further.
Meanwhile, Golden Eagle filed a report on Tuesday acknowledging that the SEC is considering fraud charges against the company for its May 22 press release.
Golden Eagle's filing, known as a Form 8-K Current Report, was highly cautionary.
It said the company is interviewing independent mining firms to audit the report of its geologist, Guido Paravacini, who is responsible for Golden Eagle's claims.
``There can be no assurance that a new independent firm will confirm any `reserves' or `mineralization' on the Cangalli concessions,'' the 8-K said.
The company also said that Paravacini's report is ``subject to substantial and material changes including the reduction or elimination of `reserves.' ''
The 8-K also warned that Golden Eagle:
* Has no experience operating large mines.
* Lacks capital to mine its property.
* Has not filed audited financial statements, including its 1997 annual report and its 1998 quarterly reports, because of accounting difficulties.
* Is considering a secondary stock offering of up to 10 million shares to raise money for open-pit mining.
Turner said Golden Eagle's 8-K report is not an about-face.
``We have our own beliefs, and we stated them in the May 22 press release,'' he said. ``We know what Paravacini said, but we can't ensure what another firm will find.''
Meanwhile, geologists eye Golden Eagle's claims with a heavy dose of skepticism.
``They've drawn a very large conclusion with limited data, and that's pretty bold,'' said Leigh Freeman, president of Orvana Minerals Corp., a Canadian-based company with offices in Denver. ``If their conclusions are accurate, it would be the largest gold deposit in the world.''
Freeman said a claim of 157 million ounces would have to be based on several thousand samples to be credible. Golden Eagle's find was based on 844 bulk samples and 2,900 assays.
Meanwhile, the largest gold mine in Bolivia produces only about 300,000 ounces of gold per year from a proven reserve of about 5 million ounces, Freeman said. And Newmont Gold Co., the largest gold mining company in North America, boasts gold reserves of only 53 million ounces worldwide.
``There simply hasn't been enough work done,'' said Ted Worthington, a geologist and reporter for The Northern Miner, a Canadian trade publication with offices in Denver.
In its June 8-14 edition, The Northern Miner analyzed Golden Eagle's claims and found them questionable.
``We found the size of the resource hard to credit and one of the reports that defined it less than convincing,'' it said. ``Your caution about this company is well-advised.''
CAPTION(S):
Color Photo
Terry Turner.
INVESTORS HIT JACKPOT IN GOLD AS SEC FRETS GOLDEN EAGLE STOCK SOARS AS TRADING SUSPENSION ENDS.(Business)Byline: Al Lewis Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer
Regulators are still crying fraud, but investors' dreams of a big gold strike panned out Wednesday as stock of Golden Eagle International Inc. rose as much as 460 percent.
The Securities and Exchange Commission suspended trading of stock in the tiny Denver-based mining company on June 19, warning that the company's bold claims of a world-class gold find in Bolivia may prove false.
But by Tuesday morning, the two-week suspension had expired and the stock was exploding. Shares rose from 31 cents to $1.75 before settling at 70 cents by the end of the day. In May, the stock had traded for as little as 8 cents.
Despite stern warnings from the SEC, investors' faith in Golden Eagle has not been shaken, especially among those sitting on tenfold gains.
``I didn't sell a penny's worth of stock,'' said Dallas investor Andr'e Nel, who purchased his stake long before the company began making its claims. ``Why would I want to cash out when this story hasn't even started yet?''
Golden Eagle President Terry Turner said he urges investors to be extremely cautious until the company's find can be more carefully scrutinized.
``Take a step back and don't get caught up in speculative buying,'' he said. ``If this stock is everything it's cracked up to be, it will be there a month from now, and it will be there a year from now.''
The SEC filed civil fraud charges against Golden Eagle and some of its officers in early May. The agency said the defendants issued false press releases to hype Golden Eagle stock and then dumped it upon unsuspecting investors between 1994 and 1996. Turner, who owns no stock in the company, was not named in that action.
On May 22, a few weeks after that announcement, Golden Eagle issued a press release saying it had a ``proven reserve'' of 6.43 million ounces and ``inferred resources'' of 157.4 million ounces of gold on 4,810 acres it controls in Cangalli, Bolivia. If the claims prove true, Golden Eagle will be sitting on the largest gold mine in the world and reserves worth billions.
As Golden Eagle stock rocketed out of penny stock territory on Tuesday, SEC investigator Bob Fusfeld said the agency still has concerns, but is limited as to how long it can halt trading. He would not comment further.
Meanwhile, Golden Eagle filed a report on Tuesday acknowledging that the SEC is considering fraud charges against the company for its May 22 press release.
Golden Eagle's filing, known as a Form 8-K Current Report, was highly cautionary.
It said the company is interviewing independent mining firms to audit the report of its geologist, Guido Paravacini, who is responsible for Golden Eagle's claims.
``There can be no assurance that a new independent firm will confirm any `reserves' or `mineralization' on the Cangalli concessions,'' the 8-K said.
The company also said that Paravacini's report is ``subject to substantial and material changes including the reduction or elimination of `reserves.' ''
The 8-K also warned that Golden Eagle:
* Has no experience operating large mines.
* Lacks capital to mine its property.
* Has not filed audited financial statements, including its 1997 annual report and its 1998 quarterly reports, because of accounting difficulties.
* Is considering a secondary stock offering of up to 10 million shares to raise money for open-pit mining.
Turner said Golden Eagle's 8-K report is not an about-face.
``We have our own beliefs, and we stated them in the May 22 press release,'' he said. ``We know what Paravacini said, but we can't ensure what another firm will find.''
Meanwhile, geologists eye Golden Eagle's claims with a heavy dose of skepticism.
``They've drawn a very large conclusion with limited data, and that's pretty bold,'' said Leigh Freeman, president of Orvana Minerals Corp., a Canadian-based company with offices in Denver. ``If their conclusions are accurate, it would be the largest gold deposit in the world.''
Freeman said a claim of 157 million ounces would have to be based on several thousand samples to be credible. Golden Eagle's find was based on 844 bulk samples and 2,900 assays.
Meanwhile, the largest gold mine in Bolivia produces only about 300,000 ounces of gold per year from a proven reserve of about 5 million ounces, Freeman said. And Newmont Gold Co., the largest gold mining company in North America, boasts gold reserves of only 53 million ounces worldwide.
``There simply hasn't been enough work done,'' said Ted Worthington, a geologist and reporter for The Northern Miner, a Canadian trade publication with offices in Denver.
In its June 8-14 edition, The Northern Miner analyzed Golden Eagle's claims and found them questionable.
``We found the size of the resource hard to credit and one of the reports that defined it less than convincing,'' it said. ``Your caution about this company is well-advised.''
CAPTION(S):
Color Photo
Terry Turner.
INVESTORS HIT JACKPOT IN GOLD AS SEC FRETS GOLDEN EAGLE STOCK SOARS AS TRADING SUSPENSION ENDS.(Business)Byline: Al Lewis Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer
Regulators are still crying fraud, but investors' dreams of a big gold strike panned out Wednesday as stock of Golden Eagle International Inc. rose as much as 460 percent.
The Securities and Exchange Commission suspended trading of stock in the tiny Denver-based mining company on June 19, warning that the company's bold claims of a world-class gold find in Bolivia may prove false.
But by Tuesday morning, the two-week suspension had expired and the stock was exploding. Shares rose from 31 cents to $1.75 before settling at 70 cents by the end of the day. In May, the stock had traded for as little as 8 cents.
Despite stern warnings from the SEC, investors' faith in Golden Eagle has not been shaken, especially among those sitting on tenfold gains.
``I didn't sell a penny's worth of stock,'' said Dallas investor Andr'e Nel, who purchased his stake long before the company began making its claims. ``Why would I want to cash out when this story hasn't even started yet?''
Golden Eagle President Terry Turner said he urges investors to be extremely cautious until the company's find can be more carefully scrutinized.
``Take a step back and don't get caught up in speculative buying,'' he said. ``If this stock is everything it's cracked up to be, it will be there a month from now, and it will be there a year from now.''
The SEC filed civil fraud charges against Golden Eagle and some of its officers in early May. The agency said the defendants issued false press releases to hype Golden Eagle stock and then dumped it upon unsuspecting investors between 1994 and 1996. Turner, who owns no stock in the company, was not named in that action.
On May 22, a few weeks after that announcement, Golden Eagle issued a press release saying it had a ``proven reserve'' of 6.43 million ounces and ``inferred resources'' of 157.4 million ounces of gold on 4,810 acres it controls in Cangalli, Bolivia. If the claims prove true, Golden Eagle will be sitting on the largest gold mine in the world and reserves worth billions.
As Golden Eagle stock rocketed out of penny stock territory on Tuesday, SEC investigator Bob Fusfeld said the agency still has concerns, but is limited as to how long it can halt trading. He would not comment further.
Meanwhile, Golden Eagle filed a report on Tuesday acknowledging that the SEC is considering fraud charges against the company for its May 22 press release.
Golden Eagle's filing, known as a Form 8-K Current Report, was highly cautionary.
It said the company is interviewing independent mining firms to audit the report of its geologist, Guido Paravacini, who is responsible for Golden Eagle's claims.
``There can be no assurance that a new independent firm will confirm any `reserves' or `mineralization' on the Cangalli concessions,'' the 8-K said.
The company also said that Paravacini's report is ``subject to substantial and material changes including the reduction or elimination of `reserves.' ''
The 8-K also warned that Golden Eagle:
* Has no experience operating large mines.
* Lacks capital to mine its property.
* Has not filed audited financial statements, including its 1997 annual report and its 1998 quarterly reports, because of accounting difficulties.
* Is considering a secondary stock offering of up to 10 million shares to raise money for open-pit mining.
Turner said Golden Eagle's 8-K report is not an about-face.
``We have our own beliefs, and we stated them in the May 22 press release,'' he said. ``We know what Paravacini said, but we can't ensure what another firm will find.''
Meanwhile, geologists eye Golden Eagle's claims with a heavy dose of skepticism.
``They've drawn a very large conclusion with limited data, and that's pretty bold,'' said Leigh Freeman, president of Orvana Minerals Corp., a Canadian-based company with offices in Denver. ``If their conclusions are accurate, it would be the largest gold deposit in the world.''
Freeman said a claim of 157 million ounces would have to be based on several thousand samples to be credible. Golden Eagle's find was based on 844 bulk samples and 2,900 assays.
Meanwhile, the largest gold mine in Bolivia produces only about 300,000 ounces of gold per year from a proven reserve of about 5 million ounces, Freeman said. And Newmont Gold Co., the largest gold mining company in North America, boasts gold reserves of only 53 million ounces worldwide.
``There simply hasn't been enough work done,'' said Ted Worthington, a geologist and reporter for The Northern Miner, a Canadian trade publication with offices in Denver.
In its June 8-14 edition, The Northern Miner analyzed Golden Eagle's claims and found them questionable.
``We found the size of the resource hard to credit and one of the reports that defined it less than convincing,'' it said. ``Your caution about this company is well-advised.''
CAPTION(S):
Color Photo
Terry Turner.
BETHANY - West Virginia's best and brightest high school studentsare gathering in Bethany for three weeks of academic challenges.
For the past 24 years, the state's top high school students havebeen able to take part in the Governor's Honors Academy where theycan specialize in …
Byline: Rick Kranz
Toyota expects a new small V-8 coming in May to boost sales of the Tundra pickup.
The 4.6-liter V-8 will debut on the 2010 Tundra, which also will undergo several midcycle changes. The engine will replace a 276-hp, 4.7-liter V-8 that makes 313 pounds-feet of torque.
"We will have class-leading power and class-leading mpg versus the small V-8s offered by Chevrolet, Ford and Dodge, said Bob Carter, Toyota Division general manager. Carter did not reveal the horsepower or torque of the new V-8.
The Tundra has a V-6 engine and 4.7-liter and 5.7-liter V-8s. The …
WATERFORD SCHOOLS
Thursday, Sept. 16
Action Items: Heard from Superintendent Carl Klossner, who outlined his proposal for suggested administrative changes in the district. These include the transition from curriculum coordinator to the newly formed assistant superintendent position and would have the high school principal also assume duties as athletic director. Other savings created by the changes include decreased cost of part-time help in the health/physical education area and retirement costs for one less administrator. Klossner's total savings to the district would be $67,109. No vote was taken on the matter. Heard Klossner discuss goals for the …
"A Short Autobiography" (Scribner), by F. Scott Fitzgerald and James L. W. West III: An often light but still poignant side of F. Scott Fitzgerald is evident in this compilation of 19 of his previously published items and articles, written mostly for popular magazines during 1920-1940.
Edited by Fitzgerald scholar James L.W. West III, the collection is billed as an autobiography because the famed American novelist and short story writer keeps the focus on himself, his views and critiques, his celebrated life and times.
The personal essays are frequently funny and fast-paced, particularly during the 1920s when he enjoyed huge literary success and, with his spirited wife, Zelda, …
The nation's health insurance crisis would be the most important issue before Americans were it not for the war for oil in Iraq.
In our city, the Chicago Teachers Union's demand that the school board pay more toward health care premiums illustrates the issue. Teachers are prepared to go on strike over it.
The proposed board contract contains more than 200 provisions. Three issues remain unresolved: the proposed contract's length, length of the school day and how much teachers pay toward health care premiums.
Compared with a proposed 46 percent pay raise to an average salary of $63,395 by year five for the typical teacher (master's degree, five years' service), the …
