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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 12, 2000)
FF Fo 69 He de G k is 2( 21 21 2^ 2£ 2£ 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 43 44 45 46 49 50 53 E 40 ARE YOU SICK OF BEING FAT?? *We bring the gym to you! CALL NOW!!! 979-680-0239 August Graduates The Official Texas A&M Graduation Announcements Order via the web! http ://graduation.tamu.edu All orders and payments must be received by June 16! MSC Box Office M-F 9:00am-4:30pm 979-845-1234 1-888-890-5667 $7.00 per hour! Part-Time Opportunities College Station Want to learn how to build a successful career? UCS knows success! A worldwide corporation in business since 1970, we have over 600 employees in our College Station office and over 800 in our Houston headquarters, many of whom are AGGIES! Come see what we have to offer! • PC/Tech Support • Clerical • Customer Service • Hardware Repair • Assembly We offer flexible hours between 6am-10pm, and real world work experience. All majors are considered and training is provided. EOE. 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All majors are considered and training is provided. EOE. To apply, please call our Personnel headquarters or visit our website. UCS, Inc. 409-595-2609 www.universalcomputersys.com UCS hires non-smokers only NEWS THE BATTALION Ripe for the picking Gas prices up nine cents in three week • Punk Local ( find su when sti new Linda Roesler, 14, of Cook's Point arranges home grown veg etables at a farmer's market in Bryan on Saturday. Roesler and her family along with many local farmers sell their produce at these markets each week. CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) — Gasoline prices climbed 8.82 cents a gallon in the past three weeks as a new kind of reformulated gas made its way to the pumps, giving some cities an average price of more than $2 a gallon. High crude oil prices, rising de mand and new antismog regulations affecting 17 metropolitan areas pushed the nationwide average cost to $1.6723 a gallon Friday, analyst Tril by Lundberg said Sunday. That compares to the May 19 Lundberg Survey of 10,000 stations nationwide that found a national av erage of $1.5841. ''We are in a nightmare of patch work-quilt environmental regula tions which wreak havoc with gaso line supply and price stability/' Lundberg said. 'The wide variety of regulations affecting formulas has created wide price disparities around the country and made distribution of gasoline more problematic.'' Metropolitan areas with some of the worst air pollution in the nation were required by June 1 to start using a new kind of gas that is designed to preserve air quality. Dealers in the Midwest, where many cities use a kind of reformulat ed gas that is blended with the corn derivative ethanol, are paying 26 cents more at wholesale, Lundberg said. Consequently, some ret have sacrificed profit margintij main competitive. In Chicago, one of the 17metn| eas affected by the new regulak; the average price for a gallon serve regular was $2.13, Lum said. That price marks the first on record that a city's overall a\ price for gas has topped $2,slii By contrast, Phoenix cameiii the lowest average price withagj of self-serve regular costing$1.1 Lundberg predicted gas Tording to tin U i by the Exec liscussed Mor liate calls upo I earliest time prices might drop slightly inc« I weeks, especially if the Organic of Petroleum Exporting Com (OPEC) decides to increasepnA tion this month. But the price\ri!| come near last year's weighteda age on June 11 of $1.19. Although the latest pricesag to be the highest on record, tfe actually lower than gas prices their peak in 1981, Lundberg| ofbonfft . e tod The March 1981 national price, adjusted $2.66, she said. |force should s The national average p|event." gasdline, including taxes, atsi The suggested pumps on Friday was $1.63 merstudents, p. Ion for regular, $1.72 for mi. .land communi and $1.81 for premium. 1 specifically ac At fql 1-service pumps, the a.8 ' was $1.93 for regular, $2.02 ferB grade and $2.09 for premium ^ d to fully and c tor inflatk emission. If sue N.C. Barbers giving away free condoms at shoji MIT CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Atop a candy vend ing machine in Tom Jacobs' barber sliop sits a glass jar witln freebies for customers. But it's not filled with free combs or candy. Jacobs is giving away condoms. Customers at LaPorsha's Hair Studio are invited to take as many as they need — part of a program adopted l*y hairstylists in five North Carolina coun ties to combat AIDS and sexually transmitted dis eases among blacks. 'The barber shop is the kind of place where the guys come in and talk about what's really hap pening in their lives," said Jimmy Wiggins, a La Porsha's customer. "It's not like church where you hold back a bit. We really let it all hang out here." Jacobs said that is why he joined the program. "There's some people who won't listen. They just want to come in and talk about how many 15-year- olds they knocked up," he said. "I want them to know, 'If you're doing it, be careful.'" The nearly 10-year-old Positive Connections pro gram, which operates only in North Carolina, aims to train 100 barbers and beauticians in the Charlotte area over the next year. If all goes as planned, they would counsel 300 men and women each week and distribute 1,000 condoms and pamphlets a week. ittei 44 7 just don't want someone coming to me in 10 years saying, 'Why didn't you tell me about this?' ” Tom Jacob's barber year, and 133 were black. Of the county'sl cases — the precursor of AIDS — 1,549 imj blacks. Jacobs and about two dozen blackbaii and hair stylists attended recent trainingsessio: counseling customers about prevention andsafi^ giving away free condoms and making refers As customers began arriving one mominfj' week, Jacobs put down his scissors and com walked over to his TV and hit the play buttoncT video cassette recorder. _ As the narrator recited the grim statistic;Ip T" mou h Ad their sumr in book than ji Carter, Texc ifigures shov\ pte students I Statistics from the U.S. Center for Disease Con trol and Prevention (CDC) show blacks, who make up 12 percent of the U.S. population, represent 37 percent of the AIDS cases; the CDC estimates one in 50 black men and one in 160 black women are in fected with HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS. In Mecklenburg County, there were 157 cases last banter in the shop fell to a whisper. Besides offering free condoms, Jacobs even j plays a 13-minute video on the HlV/AIDSepicj ic featuring President Clinton and U.S. Surgeon I eral David Satcher. lie preli minor 3,051 students. has been a sli ersaid. "There Immer. We ai ■ in the load for coming to me in 10 years saying, Whydidm B . ^ Srgraduate jun of the total nu; Jacobs, 49, said before he joined the prograij wondered whether all the safe sex talkwoukk away customers. "If I've lost some business, no one said anu'J to me about it," he said. "I just don't want son! tell me about this?' Assad nominated for president of Syria Iter said jun ■because it is DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Bashar Assad, son of the late Syrian leader, was appointed commander of the armed forces Sunday, another indica tion he will succeed his father as pres ident in a country where most people have known no other ruler. President Hafez Assad, who died Saturday, was the previous comman der. The ruling Baath Party also unan imously nominated Bashar Assad as the only candidate for president. In anointing Bashar Assad, the hier archy is opting for a smooth, stable transition — instead of the uncertainty and violence that characterized power changes in Syria before Hafez Assad took over in a bloodless coup in 1970. Hafez* Assad's strong-willed, strong-arm stewardship ended a se ries of coups that followed indepen dence from France in 1946. It remains to be seen whether Bashar Assad, who has held no major political office, will be tough and can ny enough to hold onto the power he is inheriting. But the British-educated eye doc^r was a favorite with ordinary Syrians, many of whom seemed incapable of imagining their country without an Assad at the helm. Abdel-Halim Khaddam, one of two vice presidents, declared as law Sunday a constitutional change that parliament made Saturday, lowering the minimum age for president from 40 to 34. Bashar is 34. It had long been clear Hafez Assad was grooming his son to rule after him. The political apparatus the auto cratic Assad, 69, left behind began preparing to carry out those wishes soon after he died. All that is left is for the rubber- stamp parliament, which is scheduled to meet June 25, to approve the nom ination and for elections to be held. Hafez Assad routinely ran as the only candidate in presidential elections, and just as routinely recorded "yes" votes of close to 100 percent. "We have full confidence in Bashar Like father, like son Bashar Assad is likely to become the next president of Syria after his late father Hafez. This could be the first "republican dynasty" created in the Middle East by fathers grooming their sons to ensure that political power stays in the family. Here is a look at some Arab leaders who have helped their sons to positions of political power. Ahmed All Abdullah Saleh. Yemeni •President Son: Ahmed ► Ahmed is an army colonel, and has been a member of parliament since 1997. Saddam Hussein. Iraqi President Sons: Odai and Qusai Gamal ► Gamal was recently named a member of the general secretariat of the ruling National Democratic Party. Moammar ► Odai was appointed head of Olympic Committee, Journalist Syndicate, and Writers' and Artists’ Union. Qusai is in charge of the Republican Gadhafi, Libyan Seif al-lslam and Al-Saadi 3 have assumed larger public roles, standing in for their father at public occasions. j: Compiled If' because he's the only one who can carry his father's torch, and the Syri an people don't want anyone else," said Kawkab Fares, a 24-year-old civ il servant who joined crowds Sunday at the Damascus hospital where As sad's body was believed being kept until his funeral Tuesday. "Bashar, we are with you!" the crowd chanted. Arab analysts are closely watching Syria, hoping for stability in the wake of Assad's death. In Sunday's Kuwaiti daily Al-Watan, columnist Fouad al-Hashem wrote, "The struggle for power between the old guard and the new will not be a pic nic or a walk in the park. The price will be dear, very dear. May God protect Syria and its people from all evil." The Jordan Times, an Amman-based English-language newspaper, said that whoever assumes the Syrian pres idency also will have domestic con cerns. "Hafez Assad's successor will in herit a country with the diseases that are almost typical in this region: Cor ruption, a struggling economy in need of modernization and liberal ization, and the challenges of de mocratization lying ahead," it said. The "Lion of Damascus" — Assad means lion in Arabic — was one of the region's longest-serving leaders and seen as key to a comprehensive Israeli-Arab peace settlement. He tried to rally his fellow Arabs to counter what he saw as Israeli influence in the Middle East, only to see them one by one enter peace negotiations or sign treaties with the Jewish state. Assad's death could slow already stalled Israeli-Syrian peace talks. Though Assad resumed talks with the Israelis last year after a hiatus of nearly four years, the talks were sus pended in January when Syria insist ed Israel commit to returning to pre war 1967 borders. Assad's funeral ceremonies will stretch from the capital, Damascus, to his home village of Qardaha, 125 miles northwest. Strong earthqu!f‘ ld ™ , ’ ar ‘-; 1 'olcan make th hits central Tai > 4ved in all TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP)-Al earthquake shook central Tai»f Sunday, causing rock slides juring more than 20 people,! and seismologists said. No were reported. The quake, with a preliminaf nitude of 6.7, was centered af| TERM miles north of Mount Yu, Taiwan] est mountain, about 180 miles $ the capital, Taipei, the Central" Bureau said. The U.S. Geological Survey en, Colo., which uses a differt 1 than the Central Weather Burtf sured the quake at 6.2. Taiwan's Disaster Rescue said more than 20 people wetf 1 in the early morning quake, hit by falling rocks ominous 1 Total Total Unde Junto :vie Cyra G The Bn highways or falling objectsat Departrne State radio reported thatai J &M Unive injured when it was thrownc ^ to work , cradle by the quake. istitutional R< The quake was followedbv )rc j mac j e U p tershocks with magnitudesbe' ! | acu [ t y^ S )- a ff and 5, the Central Weather But- ws research 1 All the quakes, including uman test su were considered aftershocks ie review boc magnitude earthquake that^t 220, Metho ed the region in September-tfch and Sc 2,400 people and destroy! 1 'ed Methods 1 sands ot homes. h, as well as £ Seismologists at the bure. with researcl is not unusual for aftershock-sebrch invob major earthquake to contir y Used to stu he! research i I or behavion year or more.