Letterman affairs spotlight sex, romance in the workplace

(CNN) — As the “sextortion” plot involving David Letterman continues to unfold, chit-chat about sex and the workplace — always a water-cooler favorite — is getting extra play.

That’s good news for Nicole Williams, a career expert and author of the in-stores-next-week “Girl on Top: Your Guide to Turning Dating Rules into Career Success.”

The media storm surrounding Letterman, she says, is bringing to the forefront an issue that’s as relevant and pervasive as ever.

“Eight million Americans every year enter into at least one romance starting from work,” she said, quoting a statistic from Vault.com, an online career site.
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NBA wants regular-season game in London

(CNN) — The NBA is hoping to stage a regular-season game in London in the next two years before the British capital hosts the 2012 Olympics.

David Stern, commissioner of the world’s premier basketball league, revealed that it might even be possible to hold the match at London’s O2 Arena next year.

“Who knows? We have not set the schedule yet for 2010, so we’ll see,” Stern told the UK Press Association ahead of Tuesday night’s preseason exhibition at the venue, in which the Chicago Bulls snatched a last-gasp 102-101 victory over the Utah Jazz in front a sell-out crowd of almost 19,000.

“We’re running out of runway a little bit, but we still hope to do it,” Stern said.
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What if oil weren’t priced in dollars?

Robert Fisk’s report in the Independent that the Persian Gulf countries are planning to stop pricing oil in dollars by 2018 and start using a basket of currencies instead has caused quite the big stir today. Gold hit a new record of $1,043 an ounce as investors worried about the future of the dollar, and the Internets were aflame with the news (especially the right-wing Internets, apparently.) Saudi and Kuwaiti officials immediately said there’s no such move in the offing, but it’s obviously something they’ve been thinking about. Just under two years ago there was a big flurry of discussion on the subject, including an OPEC vote to study switching to a currency basket.

If the Gulf countries stopped pricing oil in dollars, they would also presumably stop pegging their currencies to the dollar, a more significant development. And of course Chinese officials have been making noise for several years about the need to move away from a dollar-dominated world. The problem that both China and the oil exporters have is that they’re holding gigantic stashes of dollars that would suddenly be worth a lot less if they started trying to sell them off. So we’ve got this impasse, where lots of people complain about the dollar’s supremacy but nobody seems willing to do anything about it. In fact, a succession of U.S. Treasury Secretaries has trooped to Beijing trying to persuade the Chinese to do something about the dollar’s supremacy by letting the yuan float or at least rise sharply against the dollar, and met with strong resistance.
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Obama aware of Afghan differences

US President Barack Obama has said his decision on a new strategy in Afghanistan will not please everyone.

He told key figures from Congress, gathered to discuss future US plans, that he would decide on a course of action with a sense of urgency.

Democratic Senator Harry Reid said members from both parties told Mr Obama they would support his decision.

But Republican Senator Mitch McConnell stressed backing would depend on Mr Obama following his generals’ advice.

The talks at the White House came as debate intensifies over whether the US should send more troops to Afghanistan.

A US official, quoted by Reuters news agency, said of the meeting: “He… made it clear that his decision won’t make everybody in the room or the nation happy, but underscored his commitment to work on a collaborative basis.”
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Nobel honours ‘masters of light’

Three scientists who corralled light to transform our communications systems share this year’s physics Nobel Prize.

Briton Charles Kao is lauded for his work in helping to develop fibre optic cables, the slender threads of glass that carry phone and net data as light.

Willard Boyle and George Smith, both North Americans, are recognised for their part in the invention of the charge-coupled device, or CCD.

This light detector initiated the digital camera revolution.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which administers the prize, said half of the award would go to Kao, who was born in Shanghai, China, in 1933 and holds UK-US citizenship.

It was his insight while working in Britain in the 1960s, said the academy, which allowed researchers to take fibre optics to a new level – to enable these thin cables to transmit light over much longer distances than had previously been possible.
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