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Davos 2012 hails a year of worries By Tim Weber Business editor, BBC News website, Davos   Some of the world's richest and most powerful people attend the World Economic Forum When more than 2,600 of the world's richest, cleverest, most powerful, influential or entrepreneurial people are cooped up in a Swiss mountain valley, surely something must come out of it? Call it the curse of high expectations. With a track record like the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) - peace deals struck, political breakthroughs achieved, massive aid projects launched, wars averted, or at least the global agenda set - expectations are high. Against these benchmarks, Davos 2012 felt somewhat flat. Now don't get me wrong. By definition the World Economic Forum can't be boring. There are just too many interesting people here to make it a dull event. Walk 20 yards, chat to four or five people, and you ...

Why do some people never get depressed? By Geoff Watts BBC World Service Confronted with some of life's upsetting experiences - marriage breakdown, unemployment, bereavement, failure of any kind - many people become depressed. But others don't. Why is this? A person who goes through experiences like that and does not get depressed has a measure of what in the psychiatric trade is known as "resilience". According to Manchester University psychologist Dr Rebecca Elliott, we are all situated somewhere on a slidling scale. "At one end you have people who are very vulnerable. In the face of quite low stress, or none at all, they'll develop a mental health problem," she says. "At the other end, you have people who life has dealt a quite appalling hand with all sorts of stressful experiences, and yet they remain positive and optimistic." Most of us, she thinks, are somewhere in the middle. ...

Trendfear: Do you ever feel you're being left behind? By Tom de Castella BBC News Magazine   January is a cornucopia of technological tipping and frantic futurology, but do you ever get a nagging fear that trends are passing you by? What is Pinterest ? And is it important what it is? And will Summly have a big year in 2012? And does that matter? There are plenty of people who would answer these questions with a stock "I don't care". These people might refuse to even look at social media, and choose to eschew the smartphone and the tablet. But there are plenty of jobs where you might have to take notice. There are areas of advertising, marketing, public relations, journalism, academia, design, and finance where workers might find themselves looking a bit silly if they reveal they have no idea of the technological lie of the land. And the narrowly defined technology sector itself is ever-more important. ...

Defining Current Government in 3 Minutes - Very Funny Must Watch

Chandragupta Maurya Chandragupta Maurya Mauryan Emperor Reign 320–298 BCE Born 340 BCE Birthplace Patliputra (Patna) , Bihar, India Died 298 BCE (aged 42) Place of death Sravana Belgola , Karnataka, India [1] Predecessor Dhanananda of Nanda Dynasty Successor Bindusara Consort Durdhara Royal House Mauryan dynasty Religious beliefs Hinduism for major part of life, Jainism in older days Chandragupta Maurya ( Sanskrit : चन्द्रगुप्त मौर्य Hindi : चन्द्रगुप्त मौर्य ), (born c. 340 BCE, ruled c. 320 BCE, – 298 BCE ) was the founder of the Maurya Empire . He succeeded in conquering most of the Indian subcontinent and is considered the first unifier of India as well as its first genuine emperor. In foreign Greek and Latin accounts, Chandragupta is known as Sandrokyptos ( Σανδρόκυπτος ), Sandrokottos ( Σανδρόκοττος ) or Androcottus . Prior to Chandragupta's consolidation of power, small regional kingdoms dominated...

Lahore grieves over heart pill deaths By Orla Guerin BBC News, Lahore   Ashiq Hussain (right) : one of more than 100 victims of the pills   A chorus of grief rose from the narrow backstreets of Lahore, where members of the Hussain family were saying a last goodbye to a much-loved father and grandfather. Head-scarved women wept and wailed around the body of Ashiq Hussain, which was wrapped in a white sheet and covered with rose petals. He was the latest victim of the free heart drugs that have cost more than 100 - and doctors are warning the death toll could continue to rise. In one of the last photos ever taken of Ashiq, the white-haired pensioner was hugging his grandson, and smiling broadly. Relatives say they seldom saw him any other way. "He was smiling till the day he died," said Nazia Hussain, his granddaughter. "He was always happy and jolly. He never complained once that he was in pain, even in hi...

Davos 2012: IMF issues austerity warning   IMF head Christine Lagarde said she had come with her "little bag" to collect funds for the IMF   Inappropriate spending cuts could "strangle" growth prospects, the head of the IMF has warned. Austerity programmes must be tailored to each economy, Christine Lagarde said, and not be "across the board". The International Monetary Fund has been one of those stressing the need for countries to cut their debts, but some fear this could hit growth. The correct response to the eurozone debt crisis has been a major debate at World Economic Forum in Davos. "We are not suggesting there should be fiscal consolidation across the board," Ms Lagarde stressed. "Some countries have to go full-speed ahead to do this fiscal consolidation, but other countries have space and room. They should explore what to do... in order to help themselves. "It has to be tailor-made." One of tho...