Word: general
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When Lord Stanley of Preston, the Governor General of Canada, purchased the Cup for $50 in 1893, he never anticipated that a goalie would use it as a popcorn bowl in a movie theater, like the New Jersey Devils' Martin Brodeur did over a century later. Stanley bought the Cup as a prize for the best amateur hockey club in Canada. The NHL took control of it in 1926, but the tradition of abuse started at the outset. In 1905, a member of the Ottawa Silver Seven drop-kicked the Cup into a canal. The boys kept the party going...
...representatives of the 35 member states of the Organization of American States (OAS), including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, gather this week in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, for its general assembly, the region's powers themselves are grappling with their own powerfully symbolic diplomatic dilemma: how to readmit communist Cuba while adhering to an OAS charter whose rules require democratic government...
...major Latin broker countries like Brazil are stepping in now to help hammer out a deal palatable to both Washington and Havana - one that would probably demand a lesser gesture of democratic commitment on Cuba's part, like the release of political prisoners. But they also suggest that the General Assembly may end up deciding to simply hold a yearlong "dialogue" on the matter, to allow the U.S. and Cuba to ease into a compromise that would be unveiled...
...Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, a moderate socialist and former Chilean foreign minister nicknamed El Panzer for his tanklike drive, has actually strengthened the OAS's influence since being elected secretary-general in 2005 - the first winning candidate, in fact, who wasn't regarded as "Washington's man." Last year, for example, he played a key role in quieting war drums in the Andes when a crisis broke out among Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela over leftist guerrillas and territorial sovereignty. But he also took heat last fall for what critics called an all too OAS-like soft response...
...With no physical evidence and no witnesses, identifying the circumstances of Flight 477's disappearance will take time. For Julien Gourguechon, international secretary-general of the SNPL French pilots' union, the current hypothesis of an electrical-systems failure leads to more questions than answers. "If Air France mentioned they received a message of short circuit, we can conclude it was a rather serious one," he says. "But in the case of an A330, even the most serious type of short circuit - known as an emergency electrical configuration - is something absolutely manageable for a trained team. So at this time...