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Raymond L. Young: For Your Information

Talladega Parks and Recreation Department will have a summer camp from June 4th ? July 27th at the Spring Street Recreation Center.? Games, swimming, sports, library trips, outdoor activities, field trips and more.? Call Brian Hutton at 256-362-0514 for details and to register. ?SORRY, they are full for this summer.

The City of Talladega announces the Summer Food Service Program?free meals to children under 19 from June 6th ? July 20th.? Breakfasts and lunches served at various locations throughout the city.? Contact Brenda Lee (256-322-2360)or Beth Cheeks (256-362-8186) for more information.

Talladega College is offering a Summer Youth Academic and Athletic program from June 18th ? July 13th. The program is for grades 6 ? 12, ?Monday ? Friday from 8:00 a.m. ? 5:00 p.m. ?$20/week.? Registration deadline is June 11th.? Register at the Office of Continuing Education, 116 East Court Square.? Call 256-362-0118 for more information.

The 3rd Annual Miss Optimistic Pageant for girls 9 ? 18 years is June 23rd. This pageant celebrates ?beauty through optimism? and is sponsored by the Optimist Club. Applications available at Coosa Valley Electric, Spring Street Recreation Center, Boys and Girls Clubs in Talladega, Lincoln and Stemley and the Chamber office in Talladega. Entry deadline is June 9th.

Sign up for Talladega Youth Fall Sports from July 1st ? August 15th at the Spring Street Recreation Center?football, soccer and cheer squad.

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Tanks of Thanks Nomination ? Good Neighbor With A Big Heart

I?am pleased?to nominate Paul, a retired neighbor and a skilled handyman. He is always helping someone in the neighborhood and is often seen carrying a ladder down the street to unclog and repair a rain gutter or fix a loose shingle. He always has the best advice on home improvements. Without waiting?to be?asked he mows the lawn and trims trees for the widow next door who is going through chemo. He is quick to?help?with snow blowing driveways when he knows someone needs help. Paul fixes lawn mowers and other small engines for anyone who asks. The workshop in his backyard?is filled?with tools and lawn equipment that he lets us borrow (with proper instruction of course). He seems to?anticipate?our needs and is always so willing to help, and asking only a thanks in return. We couldn?t ask for a better neighbor and he is most worthy of receiving a Tank of Thanks recognition.

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Women Advancing to the C-Suite: Why So Difficult? | Business Ethics

by Gael O'Brien

Why make diversity so hard to achieve?? It is a provocative question discussed in a June 2012 Harvard Business Review article that distinguishes between action items and the leadership role of being clear what the vision for success will look like in five years.

For women seeking to advance in greater numbers to CEO and board roles, gender diversity is moving at a tortoise pace. Figures are about the same as last year; women represent 3.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs, 3.9 percent of Fortune 1000 CEOs? and 14.1 percent of executive officers. ?Women hold 16.1 percent? of Fortune 500 board seats, up a point from last year.

So with years of research from organizations like Catalyst, McKinsey and others on promoting women?s leadership, and companies adopting programs to support women?s advancement, is it just a question of more time? Or is the small amount of progress an indication that organizations are standing in their own way, making gender diversity in leadership harder to achieve?

Two factors impact the answer to that question:? how the commitment to advance women is owned ? what leading by example means -- and what a culture as a whole demonstrates about valuing people.

Some recent research addresses the impact of CEO commitment. I asked Joanna Barsh, a McKinsey Director, for an update on their research since our report last year that included McKinsey?s work regarding women, leadership and roadmaps for the future.? In interviews with 350 leaders, McKinsey probed to understand the difference between ?talking? diversity and ?living? diversity, Barsh said in a recent email update, adding, ?CEOs who are living it deal with it all the time in every venue.?

McKinsey?s April 2012 report, ?Unlocking the full potential of women at work,?? elaborates on the engaged CEO:

?When a CEO is the chief advocate and storyteller, more people believe that gender diversity matters. The difference between committed CEOs and others is subtle; the former makes the goal clear and specific, and they tell everyone about it, while the latter fold ?women? into ?diversity? and ?diversity? into ?talent? diffusing focus. In addition, hands-on CEOs reach out to get other senior male leaders involved in the effort, making them catalysts for change.?

McKinsey also recently interviewed 200 successful women, Barsh says, of which 90 percent indicated they had had sponsors. McKinsey found that when a CEO made sponsorship programs part of his or her personal agenda, they worked especially well.

Sponsorship, unlike mentorship, is an active, skin-in-the-game commitment where ideally, a sponsor provides stretch goals and opportunities and pushes the person sponsored to undertake both; the sponsor opens doors, connects, advocates for, and protects. Traditionally, women have not benefited from sponsorships as men have. For example, an internal survey at American Express found that most women surveyed had had one sponsor, while men surveyed had had three or four.

Sponsorships and diversity as part of a business imperative? At PricewaterhouseCoopers, the tone at the top is set by Chairman and Senior Partner Robert Moritz, who? champions the value of sponsors, crediting them with shaping opportunities that led to his chairman?s role. Underscoring the importance of sponsors in moving women up in the PWC organization, he addresses the importance of making the right sponsor pairings, and of sponsors receiving coaching, when necessary, in helping make others successful.

This focus has a larger purpose: PWC identifies its brand as a talent magnet. Diversity is essential in this, says Moritz, which is why the diversity officer is one of his direct reports.

In Moritz? recent keynote address at Bentley University?s Center for Women and Business? inaugural forum on women?s leadership, Moving from Conversation to Action, he discussed the kind of culture needed to support successful sponsorships and the development of the best talent. The leadership team, he said, has to make sure the environment is right so that in a sponsor relationship and relationships between colleagues, people are comfortable talking to each other about work and personal issues.

?One of our biggest challenges,? said Moritz, ?is to make sure we?ve got the right environment to have hard conversations, that we?ve got the environment where people feel they can pick up the phone and have an informal conversation; pick up the phone and talk about a work issue as well as a personal issue, and encourage that to happen.

?...If we are not talking about other stuff going on outside work,? he continued, ?we?ll never create the environment to talk about the whole person. If we can?t talk about the whole person, you won?t get the performance you need. If you can?t get the performance you need, they won?t be successful and your organization won?t be successful.?

Contrast Moritz?s emphasis on the ?whole person? with former GE CEO Jack Welch?s recent admonition at another conference about performance alone driving leadership success for women (disparaging mentoring and sponsorships etc.).

Moritz concluded his remarks by asking the several hundred people attending the day-long inaugural forum to stand and raise their left hand. The left hand, he said, ?is your ambition; it is the individual that you are reaching for the stars.? He asked the audience to notice their dangling right hand. With that right hand, he asked each person to find a woman to sponsor ?and bring her along for your ride....That domino effect will be huge...it will lead to action and lead to the impact we want.?

The reality is that diversity doesn?t have to be so hard to achieve. In the tortoise pace for gender diversity, we are losing the development of sorely needed talent.

I am reminded of a description of women?s leadership in Take the Lead by Betsy Myers,? founding director of Bentley?s Center for Women and Business.? She wrote: ?Women tend to bring a very different dynamic to leadership, one that is collaborative and team-centered, that thrives on connection, relationship, openness, and cooperation with those who have different viewpoints and beliefs.?

It is a leadership of engagement.

So what is the vision for success in five years? Ever escalating numbers of female CEOs and C-Suite leaders joining their male counterparts to create cultures of engagement, where performance is driven by the whole person - and, as a result, performance and diversity are at record levels.

Gael O?Brien is a Business Ethics Magazine columnist. Gael is a consultant, executive coach, and presenter focused on building leadership, trust, and reputation. She publishes the The Week in Ethics

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Tagged as: American Express, Bentley University, Catalyst, Gender Diversity, Joanna Barsh, McKinsey, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Women

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Creative HanZpad hurdles FCC, will deliver ICS and quad-core goodness to China

creative-hanzpad-fcc-quad-core-ICS-tab

Creative Labs might want to get some white gloves, because we recognized its fingerprints on the HanZPad, a Chinese tablet platform which just landed at the FCC. Using its own ZiiLABS division's ZMS-40 ICS optimized SoC (system on chip), the thinnish 7.95mm tab looks to have meaty specs with a quad-core ARM 1.5GHz processor, 1280 x 800 10-inch IPS display, 1GB RAM and microSD slot allowing up to 64GB of external storage. On top of Android 4.0 support, Creative will be developing its own OS for the device, which will be distributed through OEMs and its own channels. While currently tapped for the Chinese market, Creative's weighty US presence may suggest it'll eventually reach across the Pacific -- if it does, let's just hope it leaves the smudges behind.

Creative HanZpad hurdles FCC, will deliver ICS and quad-core goodness to China originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Jun 2012 03:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hatfields and McCoys big draw for History

This undated image released by History shows Bill Paxton portraying Randall McCoy in a scene from the History network's miniseries "Hatfields & McCoys." (AP Photo/History, Kevin Lynch)

This undated image released by History shows Bill Paxton portraying Randall McCoy in a scene from the History network's miniseries "Hatfields & McCoys." (AP Photo/History, Kevin Lynch)

This undated image released by History shows Kevin Costner portraying Devil Anse Hatfield from the History network's miniseries "Hatfields & McCoys." (AP Photo/History, Kevin Lynch)

(AP) ? There's nothing like a backwoods blood feud to excite television viewers on Memorial Day.

The first part of the History network's miniseries "Hatfields & McCoys" was seen by 13.9 million viewers on Monday night, more than 17 million when the immediate repeat was added in, the Nielsen company said. The numbers held up for part two on Tuesday, which was watched by 13.1 million, Nielsen said.

Those are huge numbers in the cable television world. No scripted series on the broadcast networks last week came close. By contrast, Fox's series finale of "House" last week reached 8.7 million people.

"Hatfields & McCoys" had a couple of big-name stars in Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton and is airing over three nights in two-hour chunks. Broadcast television was dominated by competition shows again last week, led by the 21.5 million people who watched the "American Idol" finale on Fox. "Dancing With the Stars" and "America's Got Talent" also did well.

Perhaps crowded by the marketplace, ABC's "Duets" finished a modest No. 23 in the ratings, with 6.8 million viewers. Fox's summer series "So You Think You Can Dance" also came out of the gate slowly, with 6.3 million viewers.

Led by "Idol," Fox won the week with an average of 8.3 million viewers in prime time (4.9 rating, 9 share). ABC had 7.4 million (also 4.9, 9), CBS had 5.8 million (3.9, 7), NBC had 4.6 million (3.0, 5), ION Television had 1.1 million (0.7, 1) and the CW had 680,000 (0.5, 1). Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with 3.7 million (2.0, 3), Telemundo had 1.1 million (0.6, 1), TeleFutura had 510,000 (0.3, 0), Estrella had 210,000 and Azteca 110,000 (both 0.1, 0).

NBC's "Nightly News" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 7.8 million viewers (5.3, 11). ABC's "World News" was second with 7.2 million (4.9, 10) and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.4 million viewers (3.8, 8).

A ratings point represents 1,147,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 114.7 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of May 21-27, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "American Idol" (Wednesday), Fox, 21.49 million; "Dancing With the Stars Results," ABC, 17.75 million; "Dancing With the Stars," ABC, 16.84 million; "American Idol" (Tuesday), Fox, 14.85 million; "Modern Family," ABC, 10.07 million; "America's Got Talent" (Monday), NBC, 9.66 million; "America's Got Talent" (Tuesday), NBC, 9.44 million; "NCIS" (Tuesday, 10 p.m.), CBS, 9.34 million; "NCIS" (Tuesday, 9 p.m.), CBS, 9.17 million; "Dancing With the Stars" (Tuesday, 8 p.m.), ABC, 8.84 million.

___

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.

___

Online:

http://www.nielsen.com

Associated Press

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The BloodOath

The BloodOath

Slavery is not uncommon in Tarsha...it is expected, however loss of freedom is not the worst that can happen. The BloodOath ceremony is coming up, will you be a Hunter or Bound? Who will be the required sacrifice?

Owner:

Game Masters:

This topic is an Out Of Character part of the roleplay, ?The BloodOath?. Anything posted here will also show up there.

Topic Tags:

online roleplay roleplay online -->

HTML, for websites and MySpace:

BBcode, for forum posts and signatures:

--> Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.
Welcome to "The BloodOath"

Thankyou for looking at my roleplay, and I hope you will consider taking part. Just please note, this is a literate, and advanced rp, so I will be rather strict on character profiles. Also, I am happy to reserve places, just note that these expire after 24 hours, if there is no reply to a pm.

Also, if you are considering playing a popular part (these are usually the Bound, and maybe a runaway), you may want to consider taking up another role. We cannot start without Hunters, and someone has to do these parts. Also, they can be played how you like, the Hunters are slaves too, and do not necessarily want to take part in the ceremony but are forced.

Also, as well as reservations, feel free to ask questions :)

Last edited by Shan? on Thu May 31, 2012 1:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Shan?
Member for 1 years



Can I make a female hunter?:

User avatar
kathrin
Member for 0 years


Can I make a female slave after school?

Vampires

Vampires do exist, and I am one of them.

User avatar
tornadofan2
Member for 0 years


kathrin- I will reserve one for you, however I need to make sure you are aware this is literate. Did a quick background check, and most of your characters are quite brief profiles, which is fine for those rp's however I am expecting about 600 words per post. I will reserve however, note that if someone else wants the spot and do a better profile they will be picked.

tornadofan2- Female is reserved for you, and that is fine, as long as she is up by tomorrow. Also same goes with posting, though your latest character profiles are up to my standards :)

Also, I do tend to like pics on the profile ;) *Hint*. For those applying, check out my own characters profiles to get an idea of what I am looking for.

User avatar
Shan?
Member for 1 years


Can I have the last female slave?

Nevermind...It was a hunter...Sorry but i wanted a servant and they are taken so...

you cut my soul.
i cut my skin.
its like a game.
but who will win?

User avatar
KayEyeEmm
Member for 0 years



Post a reply

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Delta loses vaulter's poles, athlete calls it 'bummer for sure'

Thomas Von Ahlefeld / CWU Athletics

Central Washington University senior Kati Davis clears the bar at the 2012 University of Washington Open Indoor Meet in Seattle on February 12.

By A. Pawlowski, msnbc.com contributor

Lost baggage can ruin any air traveler?s day, but a pole vaulter who says Delta Air Lines lost track of her poles has been left wondering what could have been after a disappointing finish at a national championship.

Kati Davis, a senior at Central Washington University, paid the carrier a $200 fee to have the 14-foot poles transported on a flight from Seattle to Colorado Springs on May 22.

She was on her way to the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field National Championships in Pueblo, Colo., where expectations were high for the 23-year-old athlete: Davis was going for her third All-American title.


But while she anxiously awaited the arrival of her equipment, the poles went on a three-day odyssey that eventually included stops in Salt Lake City, Atlanta and Denver. They never made it in time for the competition last Friday, where Davis had to use borrowed poles and ended up not making the cut.

?I don?t blame Delta for how I did at nationals. It definitely aided in me not jumping my best, but I don?t blame them for that,? Davis told msnbc.com.

?At the same time, I think it?s unacceptable in this day and age when you?re having to pay so much for baggage ... how they treated me during this whole week and what they do with baggage and how they can?t keep track of things.?

Delta did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

When the poles were nowhere to be found once Davis landed in Colorado Springs, a Delta agent told her they had never left the ground in Seattle and were still in the airport?s oversize baggage area, Davis recalled.

The airline arranged to have them delivered to her the next day, but after a stop in Salt Lake City, the poles somehow ended up in Atlanta for two days.

They finally arrived in Denver on the day of the competition, so Davis? coaches made the two-hour drive from Pueblo to pick up the equipment, but they got stuck in Memorial Day traffic on the return trip and didn?t make it back on time.

Davis was on her own when the championships began.

?I was at my national meet and I had some borrowed poles and I had no coach. It was a bummer for sure,? she said. She ended up ?not-heighting,? or not able to clear the initial height.

Davis, who has flown with her poles more than 20 times, noted that this was the first time she has ever had a problem with an airline transporting the equipment.

She was on the phone with Delta at least five times a day during the three-day quest, she said, and wasn?t impressed.

?The most frustrating part was the lack of customer service. I got the runaround the whole time,? Davis recalled.

She did receive two $100 vouchers for her trouble from the carrier and is in the process of getting the $200 fee refunded, David said.

Delta's luggage handling statistics stack up favorably compared with other domestic carriers, the latest government statistics show, with just over two lost bags per 1,000 passengers.?

The best performer -- Virgin America -- had less than one complaint per 1,000 passengers, while the worst performer -- American Eagle Airlines -- had more than six complaints.

More from msnbc.com:

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UN: Most of 108 killed in Syria were executed

This frame grab made from an amateur video provided by Syrian activists on Monday, May 28, 2012, purports to show the massacre in Houla on May 25 that killed more than 100 people, many of them children. The amateur footage shows people running along a street, purportedly just after the attack on Houla started. (AP Photo/Amateur Video via AP video) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS CITIZEN JOURNALISM IMAGE

This frame grab made from an amateur video provided by Syrian activists on Monday, May 28, 2012, purports to show the massacre in Houla on May 25 that killed more than 100 people, many of them children. The amateur footage shows people running along a street, purportedly just after the attack on Houla started. (AP Photo/Amateur Video via AP video) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS CITIZEN JOURNALISM IMAGE

This frame grab made from an amateur video provided by Syrian activists on Monday, May 28, 2012, purports to show the massacre in Houla on May 25 that killed more than 100 people, many of them children. The amateur footage shows people running along a street, purportedly just after the attack on Houla started. (AP Photo/Amateur Video via AP video) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS CITIZEN JOURNALISM IMAGE

EDS NOTE: CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT- This frame grab made from an amateur video provided by Syrian activists on Monday, May 28, 2012, purports to show the massacre in Houla on May 25 that killed more than 100 people, many of them children. The amateur footage shows people running along a street, purportedly just after the attack on Houla started. (AP Photo/Amateur Video via AP video) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS CITIZEN JOURNALISM IMAGE

EDS NOTE: CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT- This frame grab made from an amateur video provided by Syrian activists on Monday, May 28, 2012, purports to show the massacre in Houla on May 25 that killed more than 100 people, many of them children. The amateur footage shows people running along a street, purportedly just after the attack on Houla started. (AP Photo/Amateur Video via AP video) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS CITIZEN JOURNALISM IMAGE

In this image made from amateur video released by the Shaam News Network and accessed Monday, May 28, 2012, purports to show black smoke rising from buildings in Homs, Syria. U.N. envoy Kofi Annan called Monday on "every individual with a gun" in Syria to lay down arms, saying he was horrified by a weekend massacre that killed more than 100 people, including women and small children. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network via AP video) TV OUT, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CANNOT INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE CONTENT, DATE, LOCATION OR AUTHENTICITY OF THIS MATERIAL

BEIRUT (AP) ? The U.N.'s human rights office said Tuesday that most of the 108 victims of a massacre in Syria last week were shot at close range, some of them women, children and entire families gunned down in their own homes.

The massacre on Friday in Houla drew new international outrage, with more than half a dozen countries including France and Britain expelling Syrian diplomats in protest.

The U.N. report indicated that most of the dead were killed execution-style, with fewer than 20 people cut down by regime shelling. The U.N. cited survivors and witnesses blaming the house-to-house killings on pro-government thugs known as shabiha, who often operate as hired muscle for the regime.

"What is very clear is this was an absolutely abominable event that took place in Houla, and at least a substantial part of it was summary executions of civilians, women and children," said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. High commissioner for Human Rights. "At this point, it looks like entire families were shot in their houses."

Houla activists reached by Skype said government troops shelled the area after anti-government protests on Friday and clashed with local rebels. Later, shabiha from nearby villages swept through the area, stabbing residents and shooting them at close range.

Videos posted online by anti-regime activists show explosions in Houla, dismembered bodies lying in the streets, then row upon row of the dead laid out before being buried in a mass grave. Some of the videos showed dozens of dead children, some with gaping wounds.

The Syrian regime has denied any role in the massacre, blaming the killings on "armed terrorists" who attacked army positions in the area and slaughtered innocent civilians. But it has provided no evidence to support its narrative nor has it given a death toll.

U.N. investigators have said they found tank and artillery shells in Houla after the attack, but stopped short of blaming regime forces for the killings.

The U.N. said that at least 108 people, including 34 women and 49 children, were killed in the attack that began on Friday and continued through the night on a group of poor farming villages northwest of the central city of Homs.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Colville said U.N. monitors who visited the area found that fewer than 20 of the dead were killed by artillery fire. The rest appeared to have been shot at close range.

He said information from U.N. investigators and other sources indicated that many of the victims were killed in the Houla village of Taldaw in two separate incidents. Local residents blamed the killings on pro-regime militias known as shabiha, which sometimes act "in concert" with government forces, he said.

He said a fuller investigation was needed before he could comment on that, and called on Syria to allow free access to U.N. investigators.

The brutality of the killings and the high death toll raised new questions about the ability of a U.N.-brokered plan to end 15-months of violence in Syria.

In Damascus, international envoy Kofi Annan met with Assad on Tuesday to express "grave concern" about the Houla killings and other violence, said Annan's spokesman, Ahmad Fawzi. Annan said his plan cannot work without "bold steps" to stop the violence and release detainees.

According to the state-run news agency, SANA, Assad blamed terrorists and weapons smugglers for scuttling the peace plan. The regime denies there is any popular will behind the country's uprising, saying foreign extremists and terrorists are driving the unrest.

The new information provided by the U.N. draws attention to the role of the shabiha in 15 months of violence in Syria. Assad's government often deploys pro-regime thugs or armed militias to repress protests or carry out more military-style attacks on opposition areas.

They frequently work closely with soldiers and security forces, but the regime never acknowledges their existence, allowing it to deny responsibility for their actions.

A Syrian official denied again on Tuesday any involvement.

"It is irrational that any party who wants to make Annan's mission a success would ever commit such a massacre," Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told reporters. He said Syria remained committed to Annan's plan and "had not committed a single violation."

Activists have posted videos of tanks and armored vehicles in the middle of cities, a violation of the plan, and U.N. observers said they found spent tank and artillery shells in Houla after the massacre there. Funeral videos also showed local rebels among the mourners ? making it unlikely they carried out the killings.

Anti-regime rebels around the country regularly attack military convoys and checkpoints, killing soldiers.

Syria's international isolation deepened in response to the killings. Governments around the world expelled Syrian ambassadors and diplomats Tuesday, an unusual, coordinated blow to Assad's regime.

The United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands took action Tuesday against Syrian diplomats. Britain's foreign secretary said the countries involved in Tuesday's expulsions would also push for tougher sanctions against Syria.

Longtime Syrian ally Russia has largely stood by Damascus, although Moscow is growing increasingly critical ? particularly over the Houla massacre. On Tuesday, however, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused unnamed countries of trying to use the Houla killings "as a pretext for taking military measures."

He said such nations sought to impede Annan's plan because it seeks dialogue between Syrians, not regime change.

Syria's unrest began in March 2011, with protests calling for political change. Government troops swiftly cracked down at the uprising spread, and many in the opposition have taken up arms to defend their towns and attack government troops.

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Jordans reported from Geneva. Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, and Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara, Turkey, contributed reporting.

Associated Press

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