THE acting CEO of the fundraising arm of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights is adding her name to the list of former employees and fundraisers of the museum.

Susan Graham has been acting as the CEO of Friends of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights since June, when Dav Cvitokovic left to "pursue other opportunities" after less than a year in the job.

Now Graham has also tendered her resignation, effective the end of December. She is leaving for another organization in Manitoba, said board chairman John Stefaniuk.

He said he hopes to have the permanent replacement hired soon.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/head-fundraiser-leaving-human-rights-museum-181961131.html

Close to 300 more apartments will be coming onto the downtown market over the next 12 to 24 months as another highrise hotel converts back into an apartment block.

The 302-unit Place Louis Riel Suites Hotel at the corner of Smith Street and St. Mary Avenue originally was an apartment block when it opened in 1970, but was converted into an extended-stay hotel in the 1980s.

Now the Edmonton-based real estate company that owns it -- Westcorp Properties Inc. -- has decided to go back to the future and convert most of the suites back into studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/new-apartments-in-core-181961331.html

The only way Thunderbird House will keep its doors open is by marketing its services and renting out space to make up for a $230,000 funding shortfall, elders and board members said Monday."Unfortunately, we've been told that cultural programming does not fit the current government priority of economic development," said Kevin Hart, Circle of Life Thunderbird House board co-chairman.

The copper-roofed roundhouse at the corner of Higgins Avenue and Main Street is the city's main aboriginal spiritual centre....           ..."This isn't just about our aboriginal population. It's how we bring the four races (of people) together. That's the spirituality of this place and this is the only meeting space like this," board member and elder Billie Schibler said. She said the centre is one of southern Manitoba's Top 3 aboriginal tourist attractions, after the multi-millennia-old petroforms at Whiteshell Provincial Park and the Odena Circle at The Forks.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/shortfall-threatens-roundhouse-181961031.html

TORONTO - Those long lineups at airport security checkpoints? Maybe they're not as long as you think they are.

According to surveys done quarterly by the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, perceived wait times vary depending on who is doing the perceiving.

"Passengers that arrive a couple of hours before their flight find the wait times to be much more acceptable than those that arrive at the last minute, even if the wait time is the same," says Mathieu Larocque, spokesman for the Crown corporation that screens air travellers and their baggage.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/travel/airport-security-agency-asks-canadian-travellers-to-follow-carry-on-rules-181914951.html

BANFF — A decision by Parks Canada to postpone all significant prescribed fires in the mountain national parks this year has drawn criticism from one of the key players involved in developing the agency’s national prescribed burn program.

Park officials say the fire program was deferred because the funding pool was tapped out for the year, with money being spent on critical ecological projects elsewhere, including prescribed fires in parks in Saskatchewan....           ...“The short-sighted decision to stop getting your smoke in ‘little puffs’ is only leading to the eventual ‘big puff’, which isn’t good for the ecosystem, or the tourism business,” White said. “Much of Yellowstone was shut down during their big fire of 1988.”

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Delay+prescribed+burns+mountain+parks+called+short+sighted/7646153/story.html

A national advertising agency is suing the Tourism Industry Association of P.E.I. and the Atlantic Canada Tourism Partnership for about $930,000.

Jungle Media filed the suit in P.E.I. Supreme Court November 28. The company is claiming breach of contract and payment of money owed.

"Jungle Media has demanded payment from the Defendants," says the statement of claim.

"The Defendants have refused or otherwise neglected to pay the amounts owing."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2012/12/03/pei-tourism-lawsuit-advertising-584.html

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - The investment firm headed by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal says it has sold a majority stake in The Plaza Hotel in New York to a major Indian real estate conglomerate in a $575 million deal.

Kingdom Holding Co. says it will retain 25 per cent equity ownership in the landmark hotel, now controlled by a group led by Sahara India Pariwar. A statement Tuesday said Kingdom Holding made $32.9 million profit on the deal.

The 115-year-old Plaza has 282 hotel rooms as well as condominium units and retail space.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/saudi-group-sell-majority-stake-in-new-yorks-plaza-hotel-in-575m-deal-181959251.html

(A complete article published originally in the WFP, Dec.  '58)

OTTAWA (CP) — A Canadian tourist official in New York says the American tourist is tending to view Canada as a "poor man’s vacation land." Lance Connery, manager of the New York office of the Canadian Government Travel Bureau, told opening sessions of a three-day federal-provincial tourist conference on Wednesday. “Canada as a vacation spot is a somewhat less than deluxe label to drop in conversation.”   In the midst of jet age advertisements, the American tourist tends to get the impression that Canada is only an automobile country, he said. Prestige advertising — in influential, prestige-laden American magazines would also help counteract the impression. Alan Field, director of the Canadian Government Travel Bureau earlier told the conference the bureau’s 1959 program is concentrating on the ads in 52 American magazines, two of them in the “prestige” bracket.

NEW YORK, N.Y. - Out of the kitchen and into the hotel lobby: Gingerbread houses have gone from being a homemade project done with mom to professional exhibits designed by pastry chefs and sometimes even architects.

And never mind the humble miniature: Some displays are life-size, while others depict entire villages. A few extravaganzas raise money for charity, while some include contests for home bakers. Many are part of larger Christmas celebrations at luxury hotels that also showcase decorated trees, Santa visits and holiday menus.

Susan Matheson, co-author of the book "The Gingerbread Architect: Recipes and Blueprints for Twelve Classic American Homes," says these types of professional gingerbread creations "are elaborately detailed, spellbinding constructions that must require an army of pastry chefs, historians, engineers and consulting experts.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/travel/not-your-mothers-gingerbread-gingerbread-houses-get-out-of-kitchen-and-into-hotel-lobbies-181885161.html