The Middle East or Mideast is a region that encompasses Western Asia and all of or part of Northern Africa, depending on the context. The term is considered to be Eurocentric and used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the derived noun is Middle-Easterner.
The history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, and throughout its history, the Middle East has been a major centre of world affairs. When discussing ancient history, however, the term Near East is more commonly used. The Middle East is also the historical origin of major religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Middle East generally has an arid and hot climate, with several major rivers providing for irrigation to support agriculture in limited areas. Many countries located around the Persian Gulf have large quantities of crude oil. In modern times the Middle East remains a strategically, economically, politically, culturally and religiously sensitive region.[clarification needed] The Middle East's expected economic growth rate is at about 4.1% for 2010 and 5.1% in 2011.
Sport (or, in the United States, sports) is all forms of competitive physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Hundreds of sports exist, from those requiring only two participants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals.
Sport is generally recognised as activities which are based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with the largest major competitions such as the Olympic Games admitting only sports meeting this definition, and other organisations such as the Council of Europe using definitions precluding activities without a physical element from classification as sports. However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee (through ARISF) recognises both chess and bridge as bona fide sports, and SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports, although limits the amount of mind games which can be admitted as sports.
Lee Grinner Pace (born March 25, 1979) is an American actor. Pace has been featured in film, stage and television. He is known best for his starring role as Ned in the ABC series Pushing Daisies for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe award and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in 2008.
Pace was born in Chickasha, Oklahoma, the son of Charlotte (née Kloeckler) and James Roy Pace. As a child, Pace spent several years in Saudi Arabia, where his father was in the oil business; the family later moved to Houston, Texas. Pace attended Klein High School in the suburb of Spring in Houston, Texas, with fellow actor Matthew Bomer. Pace temporarily quit high school to act at Houston's Alley Theatre before returning to graduate. At the Alley, he appeared in productions of The Spider's Web and The Greeks.
In 1997, Pace was accepted by the Juilliard School's Drama Division as a member of Group 30 (1997–2001), which also included actors Anthony Mackie and Tracie Thoms. While there, he acted in several plays, including Romeo and Juliet as Romeo, Richard III in the title role, and Julius Caesar as Cassius. He graduated from Juilliard with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.
Palestinian Americans are Americans of Palestinian ancestry. It is difficult to say when the first Palestinian immigrants arrived at the United States; however, many of the first immigrants to arrive were Christians escaping persecution from the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century. Others came as a result of the tension during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War; the Six Day War and Yom Kippur War.
Many Palestinians settled down in cities like New York, Los Angeles and San Diego, California; Chicago and the Chicagoland suburbs of Illinois and Detroit alongside other Mediterranean communities such as the Lebanese, Syrians, Greeks, Italians, and Egyptians.
A Palestinian community of about 600 people can be found in Gallup, New Mexico.[citation needed] The relatively small community actually goes back to the 1920s by a small movement of Palestinians involved in the agricultural and mineral industries. The local Southwest Indian Jewelry stores are primarily under ownership of Palestinian Americans.[citation needed]
Patrick Francis Daniel "Pat" Farmer (born 14 March 1962), an ultra-marathon athlete, motivational speaker, and former Australian politician, was a Member of the Australian House of Representatives, representing the seat of Macarthur in south-west Sydney, New South Wales from 2001 to 2010, as a member of the Liberal Party. Farmer has an established reputation in international and national ultra-marathons. Between April 2011 and January 2012, Farmer successfully completed the world's longest ultra-marathon, a "Pole to Pole Run" from the North Pole to the South Pole, raising A$100,000 for Red Cross International.
Farmer was born in the Sydney suburb of Ultimo, one of seven children to Mary and Frank Farmer and grew up in Sydney’s western suburbs, starting his working life as a motor mechanic (1977–1984) after attending Granville TAFE.
From 1984 to 2000, Farmer commenced his passion of ultra-marathon running while working with his brother Tony as a landscape gardener and later as a motivational speaker. In 1992, he married Lisa Bullivant and they bought land in Catherine Field, where they began building their family home. They went on to have two children, Brooke and Dillon. In 1998, Lisa, aged 34, died unexpectedly of Mitral Valve Prolapse and Farmer was left to raise his two children on his own.