View time: 3 min 57
Level : Advanced
Month: September 2022
‘A servant queen’: World pays tribute to Queen Elizabeth II
Read time : 4 mins
Level : Advanced
By ANDREW MELDRUM Associated Press
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Across the globe, the death of Queen Elizabeth II has prompted reflections on the historic sweep of her reign and how she succeeded in presiding over the end of Britain’s colonial empire and embracing the independence of her former dominions.
Tributes to the queen’s life have poured in, from world leaders to rock stars to ordinary people — along with some criticism of the monarchy.
It was in Cape Town, marking her 21st birthday in 1947, that the then-Princess Elizabeth pledged that her “whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”
The British empire soon crumbled, but Elizabeth managed to maintain a regal — if ceremonial — position as the head of the Commonwealth, the 54 nations of mostly previous British colonies.
“The Queen lived a long and consequential life, fulfilling her pledge to serve until her very last breath at the age of 96,” Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, said Friday. “She was an exemplary leader of the kind seldom seen in the modern era.” Continue reading
Obama portraits head to the White House
View time : 3 min 20
Level : Intermediate
9 Words You Should Never Use To Describe Yourself on Your Resume
Read time : 3 mins
Level : Intermediate
9 Words You Should Never Use To Describe Yourself on Your Resume
By Laura Berlinsky-Schine
You toil over your resume, adding the right keywords, the best descriptions, and the perfect examples. But hiring managers typically only spend a few seconds glancing through it, on average.
You have limited space – and time – to make yourself stand out. And you may be unknowingly wasting it – if you’re using these words and phrases.
9 Words To Avoid on Your Resume
1. Go-Getter
It sounds nice enough, but the go-getter doesn’t say anything that descriptive about you. Sure, you’re hardworking and have goals, but chances are, so does everyone else applying for the job. Similar words, such as intelligent and proactive, also convey very little about your drive and just show that you have a healthy self-perception. And saying it isn’t going to make you stand out.
It’s best just to eliminate it. Alternatively, give a concrete example of a time you went above and beyond. Continue reading
Covering Gorbachev: AP remembers his wit, wisdom, warmth
Read time : 3 mins
Level : Advanced
The Associated Press undefined
When news hit that Mikhail Gorbachev had died at age 91, Associated Press journalists around the world began sharing their “Gorby” stories from covering the last Soviet leader or interviewing him in Russia or abroad in the three decades that followed. They remember his temper and sense of humor, his sharp intellect even in his later years, when he was willing to talk at length about his hopes and his regrets.
That is if you could follow his long, rambling sentences in his southern Russian accent and his annoying tendency to refer to himself in the third person. For some of them, though, it was the warmth of an aging Gorbachev that they remember. The shared tea, the arm around the shoulder. Gorbachev was a man who changed the world, and the AP was there.
Gorbachev came to power in 1985 with no less of a goal than to transform the Soviet Union and the lives of his fellow citizens, many still desperately poor. The obstacles he faced were monumental. Continue reading
Exercise, research key in quest for vital old age
View time: 2 min 54
Level : Advanced
German leader outlines vision for bigger, more coherent EU
Read time : 3 mins
Level : Intermediate
PRAGUE (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Monday for a growing European Union to agree on a series of changes that would help it overcome internal divisions and stand up to external rivals such as Russia and China.
In a wide-ranging speech at Charles University in Prague, Scholz said the EU must make itself “fit” for future enlargement from 27 to 30 — or even 36 — nations by taking more decisions by majority vote, rather than requiring unanimity on all issues that has in the past allowed individual member states to veto key decisions.
“We have to remember that swearing allegiance to the principle of unanimity only works for as long as the pressure to act is low,” Scholz said, arguing that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a wake-up call for the EU to change the way it takes decisions. Continue reading
Serena – tennis icon’s impact felt in Black America
View time : 1 min 49
Level : Intermediate