| UN, Spain and Turkey to inaugurate 1st Alliance of Civilizations forum ...
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will join the prime ministers of Turkey and Spain on Tuesday to open a two-day forum of the Alliance of Civilizations, a U.N.-backed initiative aimed at encouraging dialogue between the West and Muslim countries. The event will be attended by dozens of government members, representatives of international organizations, civil society, the media and philanthropic foundations from some 80 countries. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, former Irish President Mary Robinson, Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho and Nigerian author and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka were expected to attend. .
Who's Blogging
Just when you think the NFL playoffs can't possibly be more boring or more predictable, a day like Sunday jumps up and happens. The defending Super Bowl champions lose at home -- to a team that has more wounded than an episode of M*A*S*H -- and the Dallas/Hollywood Cowboys go down to a team that was suppposed to be firing its coach after a 6-10 season right about now. The only problem with last Sunday is it might -- repeat might -- lead to two one-sided conference championship games this Sunday. Raise your hand if you really think the San Diego Chargers with a hobbled quarterback, a hobbled running back and a hobbled star tight end are going into Foxboro and beating the unbeaten New England Patriots. Raise the other hand if you think the gritty New York Giants with young Eli are walking into Green Bay, in what is supposed to be single-digit weather, and ending the made-for-TV movie that is the 2007 Packers, starring 57-year-old Brett Favre.
The Vienna strangler
The body of a woman was lying face up, 20 yards west of the dirt road, underneath a laurel sumac shrub. Her face was obscured by maggots streaming out of her nose, mouth, eyes and ears. Her T-shirt was hiked up to her shoulders. Around her neck was a tightly knotted bra. Police identified her by her fingerprints. She was Sherri Long, a prostitute. In the pathologist's estimation, the victim had been dead for four to seven days. When detective Fred Miller at LAPD homicide heard the story of the girl murdered in Malibu, he figured the killer he'd been hunting had struck again. The killer had struck first on the night of June 19 1991. Twenty-year-old Shannon Exley had called her father before she went to work and told him she was trying to get her life in order. Her last customer picked her up on Seventh sometime after midnight and drove east, across the LA river to the Girl Scout Centre on Seventh and Fickett.
People skills are hot in 2008
Can actually speak and write in a way that customers, clients and others know what you mean and you communicate often enough so they don't feel left out in the cold. Can work through difficult issues with customers, clients and co-workers without screaming at one another. Know how to get your point across and preserve the relationship at the same time. Most people stink at this, in part because few think about what it really means. They simply call it "people skills" which doesn't tell you anything. And for years, companies have lumped it under "soft skills," making it seem less pertinent than things like developing strategies and budgets and project management. A lot of people also miss this important nuance: everything is personal.
Open Thread
From what I have seen she would not qualify for dog catcher because she has never worked a real job like the rest of us. ********************* Humped Back lie of the week: "From the beginning, Mr. Vick has accepted responsibility for his actions, and his self-surrender further demonstrates that acceptance," Billy Martin, Vick's attorney. Right, only after his homeboys turned on him did he accept any responsibility. ******** I think that I am going to take a break from politics for the next few days. My daughter, husband and their 3 kids are here. My oldest son and his 2 are coming and my other son, his fiancée and her son will be here tomorrow. My daughter in Pensacola can't come because her doctor won't let her travel. She is going to fix dinner for about 10 Marines that are in her husband's class at Corry Station that couldn't go home.
Scotching the myth
Gordon Brown's elevation to Prime Minister and Alistair Darling's promotion to Chancellor raised the temperature.With two Scots in Downing Street, some politicians and the London-based media have launched political attacks. Journalist Kelvin MacKenzie provocatively told a TV debate: "The Scots exist solely on the handouts of the clever English generating wealth in London and the south-east." It is notoriously difficult to disentangle the UK's tax and spending totals to discover where the winners and losers lie. However, our study concludes that far from being "subsidy junkies", Scots pay their own way. .
Police burst into wrong apartment
When all three were cuffed, an officer asked Tina Williams if she knew any Hispanic males. Williams was baffled. It all turned out to be a mistake. The officers, looking for one of three suspects in the fatal shooting of a man at the OK Corral about six hours earlier, had obtained a search warrant for the Williams' apartment after a witness told them a suspect lived inside. Hanahan Police Lt. Michael Fowler said Wednesday that they had received bad information and apologized to the Williams family — but they can't apologize for why they did it. "We hit the door fully expecting an armed murder suspect on the other side," Fowler said. Tina Williams said the incident has traumatized her family, and she questions why it ever happened. She can't sleep, Brandie couldn't talk for two days and Brandon now fears the police, she said.
Prisoners or slaves? New row over wreck's bones
For a decade the curious case of the Rapparee Cove bones has caused diplomatic tension and fierce academic argument. Found during an archaeological dig on the rocky coast of north Devon, the discovery of the remains seemed to confirm that a boatload of slaves was shipwrecked off the British coast and the survivors possibly sold on. Ten years on, a row over the bones has reignited with one historian criticising a former colleague for not publishing the results of tests on the remains and a notable black campaigner claiming that the dearth of information on the bones showed a lack of respect for the black people who died on board the ship. .
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