'Superstorm' Sandy Batters US East Coast

Hurricane Sandy, now downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone, has made landfall on the U.S. East Coast, putting some 50 million people in the path of torrential rain, high winds and dangerous tidal surges from one of the biggest

storms to hit the region in years.

Sandy came ashore on the coast of New Jersey Monday, about 10 kilometers south of Atlantic City, some 200 kilometers south of New York City, bringing storm surges of nearly three meters to lower Manhattan.

Major U.S. cities along the Eastern seaboard are at a standstill, with public transit systems suspended, airports closed and millions of people forced to stay home from work.  New York's main utility has cut electricity to lower

Manhattan in an effort to stave off damage to the subway system.

Forecasters say the storm is 65 kilometers south of Atlantic City, New Jersey, about 200 kilometers south of New York City, and traveling westward at 44 kilometers per hour.

President Barack Obama canceled election campaign events to monitor the storm from the White House.  He urged those in the storm's path to heed warnings about the dangerous nature of it.

"The most important message that I have for the public right now is please listen to what your state and local officials are saying.  When they tell you to evacuate, you need to evacuate.  Do not delay, don't pause, don't question the

instructions that are being given because this is a serious storm and it could potentially have fatal consequences if people haven't acted quickly," he said.

Authorities in nine U.S. states and Washington, D.C. declared states of emergency, as the storm has already knocked out power to 1.5 million people on the U.S. east coast.   U.S. federal government offices were closed Monday

and will remain so on Tuesday.

U.S. Coast Guard helicopters rescued 15 crew members who abandoned a tall ship after it started to take on water off the coast of the state of North Carolina.  The Coast Guard says it is searching for one other crew member

who is missing from the HMS Bounty.  The replica of an 18th century ship was featured in the 1962 film "Mutiny on the Bounty."

Forecasters said Sandy was expected to merge with a cold weather system, transforming it into a "super storm" before it makes landfall.  New York authorities ordered the evacuation of 375,000 people from low-lying parts of the

city, whose major stock markets were closed in their first unplanned shutdown since the September 11, 2001 terrorists attacks.

Officials said people who refuse to evacuate and later need to be rescued would be putting the lives of emergency workers at risk.

Sandy killed at least 65 people in the Caribbean last week before it moved toward the United States.

Abandoned puppy and kittenhanded into rescue centre at the same time now think that they are SISTERS

　　An orphaned puppy and abandoned kitten who were put together ata rescue centre have become so close - they think they aresisters.Kitty the cat was brought into Battersea Cats and Dogs Homeby a kind-hearted member of the public who found her alone in agarden when she was just one day old.To keep her company she wasput together with Buttons the Jack Russell, who was born at thecentre but rejected by her mother as the runt of the litter.

　　Adorable: Buttons the abandoned puppyand Kitty the rescued kitten are so close they think they aresisters and live at Battersea Cats and Dogs Home.

　　Come here you: Buttons was rejectedby her mother as she was the runt of the litter。

　　Room for me? Buttons vies for hershare of the food as Kitty digs right in.

　　They have since become inseparable - and even cry when Kitty ismoved to the cattery to spend some time with other cats.BatterseaVeterinary Nurse Sascha Taylor says the pair eat, sleep and playtogether.

She said: 'Normally we’d hand rear puppies and kittensseparately but we thought we could try putting them together asthey are both so young。
　　'Luckily it’s paid off as they adore being with each other anddo everything together - it’s really very sweet。
　　'Buttons’ mum Poppy was given to the centre in Old Windsor,Berks., because her elderly owners could not cope when theydiscovered she was pregnant with eight puppies。
　　Heartwarming: The 'siblings' indulgein a bit of rough and tumble at the rescue home。
　　Inseparable: Staff at the homedecided to try rearing the pair together and they have since becomegreat companions。
　　Tiny: The two rescued pets fit snuglyinto the palm of a member of staff's hands。
　　Rescued: Kitty, who was rescued by amember of the public, has a wrestle with Buttons。
　　But she was the runt of the litter and staff have had tohand-rear her after being rejected by her mother and was at risk ofbeing killed by her seven brothers and sisters。
　　Kitty and Buttons were put together when they were about twoweeks old and treat each other like siblings。

　　Staff at the animal home are hoping someone has enough room toadopt the loveable pair, who are now both around four weeksold。
　　Nurse Sascha added: 'Hand-rearing them is hard work - I have tofeed them every two hours, even throughout the night - but it’stotally worth it。
　　'We’re not sure if they’ll be re-homed together, though it wouldbe great if they did.'
　　Get off! The rescue home hope tore-home the adorable pair together
　　Move over: Kitty is wide awake asButtons tries to sleep off all that playing
　　Gnawing: Kitty appears to havespotted something as Buttons nibbles on a corner of a cushion
　　Say cheese: Buttons stares at thecamera as Kitty tucks into her dinner

Researchers say that bald men, such a Bruce Willis, are perceived as being better lead

　　Bald men are perceived to be more dominant, more athletic and better leaders, researchers have claimed.

　　A new study from information management lecturer Albert Mannes at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business suggests that while men with male-pattern baldness tend to view themselves as having poor self-esteem, those who take the pre-emptive step of shaving a thinning head of hair improved their image.

　　'The broad take-away is that perceptions about leadership and related traits like dominance can emerge from peculiar characteristics that aren’t really related to leadership at all,' says Mannes.

　　For the paper, 'Shorn Scalps and Perceptions of Male Dominance,' published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, Mannes describes three experiments.

　　The first found men with shaved heads were viewed as more masculine and dominant than other men.

　　Two more experiments found men were perceived as taller (by an inch, on average) and stronger (that is, seen as being able to bench press 13% more) than those men with a full head of hair.

　　They were also viewed as having greater potential as leaders.

　　Mannes said the impetus for his research came from his own experience in his early thirties, when he began losing his hair.

　　In the first experiment, subjects were asked to look at a series of photographs of men of similar age and dress, including some with shaved heads.

　　Then, they were asked to rate the men in terms of how powerful, influential and authoritative they looked. When the numbers were tallied, the shaved heads won.

　　In a second experiment, Mannes tried to control for other physical features that could convey dominance by showing his subjects the images of four men, but in two different versions: one with their hair, and one with their hair digitally removed.

　　Again, the images of men without hair were perceived as more dominant — and, much to Mannes’ surprise, also taller and stronger.

　　For his third experiment, Mannes avoided all visual cues and offered subjects physical descriptions of men, including whether they had hair, thinning hair or a shaved head.

　　Again, the shaved men came out on top.

　　However, there were downsides. Men with shaved heads were rated lower in attractiveness and also seen as being older. But they nonetheless scored higher than men with thinning hair, who were ranked lower in almost all categories.

A photographer has made a real meal out of a selection of classic 16th century paintings by recreating them using fruit and vegetables

　　New York based photographer Klaus Enrique Gerdes was inspired by Italian painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo who created real-life portraits using fruit, vegetables, meat and flowers. He then painted his creations on to canvas creating a selection of unique artworks between 1527 and 1593.

　　Klaus Enrique Gerdes now does the same, except that photography allows him to capture his subject instantly - before any of the ingredients begin to wilt.
　　Getting his five a day: A portrait of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II as the Roman God of the seasons Vertumnus by photographer Klaus Enrique Gerdes, left, and the original painted in 1590 by Italian Giuseppe Arcimboldo, right.

　　Barking up the wrong tree: Klaus Enrique Gerdes's recreation of Winter, left, originally painted Giuseppe Arcimboldo in 1573, right.

Obama, Romney kick off foreign policy debate

BOCA RATON, the United States, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney were starting on Monday night to duel on foreign policy issues in their third and final face-to-face encounter.

The debate came 15 days before voters choose a new White House occupant.

The face-off in Lynn University in Boca Raton of Florida could turn out consequential in a very tight race as latest polls show the duo neck-and-neck among likely voters.

Moderator Bob Schieffer from CBS News has selected five topics for the 90-minute event, namely America's role in the world, the war in Afghanistan, Iran's nuclear issue, the changing Middle East and the new face of terrorism, and the rise of China.
While foreign policy has been a strength of Obama throughout the campaigns, the Democratic incumbent has found his advantage narrowing to a mere four percentage points, a contraction of 11 points from last month, following his lackluster performance in the first presidential debate on Oct. 3, and his rebound in the next encounter on Oct. 16 has failed to regain the lead.

Gov't to curb corruption in medical procurement

Authorities have pledged to further crack down on illegal activity regarding procurement procedures at local hospitals that are under the supervision of local governments, mainly at the provincial and prefectural levels.

Anyone who violates the law must be dealt with and punished, said Minister of Health Chen Zhu at a national conference on pharmaceutical procurement held in Beijing.

Online procurement will be widely adopted at the provincial level, said the minister, adding that he hopes online purchases will help ensure quality, bring prices down, regulate the sector and curb illegal activity.

Chen called for tougher scrutiny and stricter control over pharmaceutical purchases, as well as urged efforts to set up a system that will prevent hospitals from profiting from medication sales in order to deter excessive prescriptions. ' Domestic hospitals and clinics make significant profits by selling pharmaceuticals at high prices. Doctors have been known to prescribe expensive drugs in order to get kickbacks from manufacturers, increasing financial burdens for patients and causing confrontations between hospital staff and patients.

A romantic message-in-a-bottle discovered by a mother

A romantic message-in-a-bottle discovered by a mother and daughter at a Scottish beach has sparked a mystery about whether it could have travelled 5,000 miles across the seas from China.

Nicola MacFarlane, 41, and daughter Lucy, four, from Portobello, near Edinburgh, were scouring Portobello Beach when they came across an old glass bottle sticking out of the sand containing a note inside written in Mandarin.

Now the family are trying to work out if the letter has managed the extraordinary journey across the South China Sea, into the Indian Ocean and through both the South Atlantic and the North Atlantic Ocean's before washing up on the shores of Great Britain.

It is unclear when the letter was sent off, as it was written on Chinese Valentine's Day, or Qixi Festival as it is more traditionally known, which falls on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.

While the letter bears the date in line with the lunar calendar - July 7, 2012 - it could have been sent off as recently as six days ago if it followed the modern calendar, which celebrated the occasion on August 23.

Whether the message has travelled thousands of miles from China or whether it was penned by a love-struck pair much closer to home remains a mystery.

But for Nicola it doesn't matter - she was still excited to read about the Chinese love story after having it translated.

She said: ‘I really do hope that it is from China but even it is from nearer to home, it’s still a lovely gesture and an inspiring find. It’s a love story regardless of where it came from.’

Nicola, who runs a beach art business in Portobello, added: ‘I’m always at the beach looking for bits of driftwood but I’ve never come across anything like this before.

Unable to read the Mandarin text, Nicola turned to the internet and her Australian friend, Julie Gould, whose daughter attended a Chinese school in Sydney.

Several hours later Julie returned with the news that it was in fact a love letter.

The translated letter reads: ‘Da Hai: Ocean, I hope no-one will get this bottle, as we just wish you can hear our voice, and get your blessing.

‘Today is the Chinese Valentine’s Day, we pray that our relationship will last forever and we will have a long happy life together.'

(Read by Brian Salter. Brian Salter is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

Best CFOs list

　　　The title chief financial officer may still evoke green eyeshades and rote bean counting. But today's business environment ensures that such a one-dimensional figure hardly exists any more.

In assembling its first ever Best CFOs list, The Wall Street Journal sought to identify executives who both run top-performing finance operations and take a lead role in setting strategy at their companies.
　　The Wall Street Journal compiled the ranking using quantitative and qualitative measures, including the role the CFO plays in each company and how peers and competitors regard the CFO's work.
　　Median compensation for CFOs in the S&P 500 climbed 2.1% last year to $3.3 million. Median compensation for the Top 25 CFOs was $4 million.

　　No. 1 Mark Loughridge, IBM
　　International Business Machines Corp. IBM +0.15% has become a voracious acquirer, with over 100 deals in the past decade. Mark Loughridge, 58 years old, has stitched many of those companies together since becoming CFO in 2004. He has made few mistakes along the way.
　　The mix of finance and strategy means he 'defines the modern CFO,' says Peter McLean, chairman of the Global Financial Officer Practice at the executive recruiter Korn/Ferry International.
　　In particular, Mr. Loughridge is lauded for his role in helping outsiders make sense of IBM following the divestiture of its hardware business in 2005.
　　'Investors were unsure whether IBM could continue to [improve] earnings,' says Ben Reitzes, a Barclays Capital stock analyst. 'When Mark took over, IBM had made a lot of hard decisions. What investors didn't understand was what the new IBM would look like. He took [the opportunity to define that] and ran with it.'
　　Mr. Loughridge helped simplify IBM's message in a road map that was first created in 2007. It laid out IBM's plans through 2010 for how to grow profit and earnings per share and how to invest its cash. The company is now on its second road map, which will take it through 2015.
　　'We don't get comments anymore that 'IBM is too complex' or 'I don't understand IBM,'' Mr. Loughridge wrote in an email. 'Every investor may not agree with everything that we are doing, and that is a fair discussion to have,' says Mr. Loughridge. 'They have the right to kick the tires, but the conversation is no longer about how hard we are to understand.'
　　Mr. Loughridge, who received compensation valued at $8.0 million for 2011, says the biggest impact has actually been on insiders, which is essential for a company as big as IBM, which surpassed $100 billion in revenue last year.
　　'One of the most impressive things he's done isn't only put out the road map, but get every division across the company to focus on it and then hit the targets, despite the macro choppiness,' says Amit Daryanani, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets.
　　A major piece of IBM's strategy has been acquisitions. While none have been huge, they've been done with very specific targets for metrics like accretion and internal rate of return.
　　'They've become a model in the industry for how to acquire companies in an continuing way, and Mark has been at the epicenter of that,' says Toni Sacconaghi Jr., a hardware analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.
　　'He's humble enough to listen,' says Barclays' Mr. Reitzes. 'In a company like IBM, the CFO is more important than at a growth company, I would argue.'
　　No. 2 Carol Tome, Home Depot
　　Carol Tome is known for restraint. The Home Depot Inc. helped slow the retailer's pace of new-store openings in the U.S. from one almost every 48 hours in 2001 to one or two a year. Instead of spending money on new stores, the home-goods seller is investing about $1 billion a year from cash flow into technology and employee training to boost productivity in existing locations.
　　'Carol has been committed to not overgrowing the store base and is diligent about returning cash to shareholders through buybacks and dividends,' says Laura Champine, an analyst with Canaccord Genuity Securities.
　　Ms. Tome has overseen $33.6 billion in share buybacks between 2002 and 2011, and in 2010 she helped initiate an aggressive dividend policy that now pays out at least 50% of annual earnings.
　　'We don't hold cash idly,' says Ms. Tome, who has been Home Depot's CFO since 2001 and received compensation valued at $5.6 million last year.
　　Home Depot's stock surpassed $50 for the first time in 2012. It has returned a 45% gain over the past five years, compared with a 5% loss for the broader Standard & Poor's 500 stock index.
　　Slowing sales are the biggest risk facing the retailer. Janney Montgomery Scott analysts recently downgraded the company to neutral from buy on those fears, citing weakening U.S. census figures for building-material and garden-supply dealers.
　　Ms. Tome's vow to maintain the outsize dividend, regardless of business disruptions, could prove a drag if those predictions come true.
　　Ms. Tome, 55 years old, says a stint early in her career helping Johns Mansville through bankruptcy helped to inoculate her against fears of volatility. During the recession, 'I didn't lose any sleep, because I had been through trouble before, and I knew we would be fine.'
　　Ms. Tome is also audit committee chair for United Parcel Service Inc., chairs the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and heads the Metropolitan Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.
　　When insomnia does strike, Ms. Tome says she takes up her knitting and makes baby hats for everyone from security guards to investment-bank analysts.
　　No. 3 Karen Hoguet, Macy's
　　Macy's Inc.CFO Karen Hoguet is credited with bringing strength to the retailer in a long struggle to avoid extinction at the hands of e-commerce companies and specialized fashion competitors.
　　During her 15-year tenure as CFO, Ms. Hoguet, 55, has led multiple acquisitions, including the $17 billion deal for May Department Stores Co. in 2005. and, in its wake, a string of divestitures and the repayment of more than $3 billion in debt.
　　More recently, she has been heavily involved in remaking the company's corporate structure, including unifying acquired brands such as Marshall Field & Co. under the Macy's moniker.
　　Ms. Hoguet, whose 2011 pay was valued at $4.3 million, is also trying to improve online-sale operations, including figuring out how to manage combined store and website inventory while cutting costs along the way.
　　'She has had the most complex job in retail, given all that Macy's has done, and has done a tremendous job of it,' says Liz Dunn, a retail analyst with Macquarie Securities.
　　Macy's earnings have more than doubled over the past three years, return on invested capital edged close to 20% last year, and the stock is outperforming most of its peers.
　　Macy's Chief Executive Terry Lundgren says Ms. Hoguet is one of the most accessible executives on his team, answering even midnight emails within minutes.
　　She often accompanies him on his weekly surprise store visits, looking for ways to refine the mix of merchandise and selling techniques.
　　'One of the problems today is that we rely on all these computer reports─we know what customers buy, and how rapid the sell-through is on any given item─but no report will tell you how much they would have bought if things had been different,' Ms. Hoguet says.
　　On Macy's quarterly earnings calls, Ms. Hoguet often runs the show solo, adding color about sales strategies and the future of retail to the standard litany of metrics. She goes 'beyond what you'd expect of a CFO,' Mr. Lundgren says.
　　But like many retailers, Macy's is being pushed by competitive pressures to invest in its physical stores before consumer confidence fully rebounds.
　　If the economy sags, the $850 million that is slated for capital projects this year, including a prolonged prolonged makeover of Macy's flagship Herald Square location in New York, could be a risky bet.
　　No. 4 Stacy Smith, Intel
　　When Intel Corp.'s INTC -1.00% Stacy Smith was promoted to CFO in 2007, the U.S. was teetering into recession. Intel, whose main business is semiconductors, was hit hard as demand for computers dropped: The company's profit fell 24% in 2008 and another 17% in 2009.
　　'I don't think anybody when they take the reins of a Fortune 50 company really is fully prepared' for how broad and complex the job is, says Mr. Smith. 'I don't think I was ready when I took the reins back in 2007.'
　　It took until 2010 for computer spending to rebound. Last year Intel's annual revenue surpassed $50 billion for the first time and income rose to almost $13 billion.
　　Stifel Nicolaus analyst Patrick Ho credits Mr. Smith with being 'really good for Intel's gross margins' during that recovery, moving them from the 55%-60% range up to 60%-65%.
　　The 49-year-old Mr. Smith, a corporate lifer who joined Intel in 1988, spent time as the chip maker's chief information officer and the general manager of its Europe, Middle East and Asia operations. He also served as assistant CFO for about a year under Andy Bryant, Intel's finance chief of 13 years.
　　'A long career in finance is what makes him technically qualified for the job,' wrote Intel CEO Paul Otellini in an email. 'And, the number of positions he's held outside of finance have allowed him to learn [about] our company in intimate detail.'
　　Cody Acree, an analyst with Williams Financial Group, sees a close relationship between Mr. Smith and his CEO. 'You can talk utilization rates and cost structures with Stacy, but he'll give you the same high-level strategic message that you'll get from Paul,' he says.
　　Despite the difficult economic environment of those first years, they were simpler in some ways.
　　'If you think about the Intel of five years ago, we were a company that was almost exclusively in the PC and server markets,' says Mr. Smith, whose 2011 compensation was valued at $6.4 million last year. 'Our market has moved to everything' that connects to the Internet.
　　That expansion into areas such as mobile devices entails huge investment for Intel, with spending expected to breach $18 billion this year.
　　Intel needs to make sure those investments are targeted to markets with the size and growth opportunity to make 'financial sense,' says Mr. Acree. 'That is a huge tightrope for somebody like Stacy to walk.'
　　No. 5 Paul Clancy, Biogen Idec
　　At the start of his tenure as Biogen Idec Inc.'s CFO, Paul Clancy faced a drawn-out battle with activist-investor Carl Icahn.
　　Despite those conditions, Mr. Clancy acquired a reputation for levelheadedness and a focus on shareholder return.
　　'What's striking about Paul is that regardless of the environment, there is an underlying calm and a sense of precision about analyzing what is happening and what to do next,' says Brian Posner, an investor who joined Biogen's board in 2008.
　　Mr. Clancy, who came to the biotech company in 2001 after 13 years at PepsiCo Inc., PEP +0.68% was promoted to the top finance job in August 2007. That year, Mr. Icahn called for the sale of the company but ultimately failed to find a buyer. Between 2009 and 2010, he won three board seats. In 2010, Biogen CEO James Mullen retired at the age of 51.
　　During that time, the maker of multiple-sclerosis and hemophilia drugs kept repurchasing shares, while revenue and profits grew steadily.
　　'Paul has probably created more shareholder value than any other CFO I've covered in this industry with the series of buybacks he orchestrated a few years ago,' says Eric Schmidt, an analyst with Cowen & Co. 'They were perfectly timed to the bottom of the market.' 'They were perfectly timed to the bottom of the market.'
　　Since Mr. Clancy, 50, became CFO, Biogen has spent more than $5 billion to repurchase more than 82 million shares at an average cost of about $61 apiece. That is about 58% below the current stock price. Mr. Icahn sold all his shares last year at more than double his purchase price.
　　Expectations remain high. Biogen has five products that could produce milestone events in the coming quarters.
　　'You have to be balanced in how much you spend and how you prepare' for new products, says CEO George Scangos, who took over in July 2010. 'Beyond that, assuming one or two of those are positive, the company should be in a period of some growth, one would hope. And we'll have to manage that carefully, and Paul will be at the center of that as well.'
　　Mr. Schmidt of Cowen says the optimism 'can in itself be a big challenge for a CFO. Paul is going to have to make sure that expectations don't get out of whack with reality.'
　　Mr. Clancy, whose pay was $2.9 million in 2011, says he is trying to take a similar approach to his early years on the job. 'We're having remarkable success now, but you still need two feet on the ground,' he says.

Gold Feeds - And Poisons - Nigerian Children

BAGEGA, NIGERIA — About 20 miles from the nearest paved road or light switch, the village of Bagega, Nigeria is the epicenter of the worst lead poisoning outbreak that anyone can remember. The government has promised

millions of dollars for a massive life-saving cleanup, but small children continue to play in toxic dirt, and activists say time is running out.

At a gold-processing site, men hammered away at rocks. As he worked, Ismail explained how it’s done.

He said that first they crush the rocks, then they feed the pebbles into an electric flour mill, powered by a small generator. Gold is then extracted from the sand. As they worked, an unusual kind of dust billows from the hammers

and machines, covering Ismail’s body and clothes. It’s dust that is laden with lead.

Casualties and rampant sickness

Activists say hundreds of children have been killed in this region over the past few years, and thousands have been crippled by the lead from the mining and processing of gold here in Zamfara State in northern Nigeria.

Many villages in the region already have been cleaned up and survivors have been treated. Some of those villages lost more than 40 percent of their children before the outbreak subsided.

In Bagega, however, thousands of children continue to be exposed every day. The government has promised more than $4 million for cleanup, but so far nothing appears to be happening.

Medicine ready

The head of Nigeria's Doctors Without Borders branch, Ivan Gayton, said they have the medicine and are ready to treat the children, but they can’t do anything until the lead is cleaned up, a process they call remediation. Right

now in Bagega, he said, children are playing in poison dirt, getting sick when they put their hands in their mouths.

“It has been three years that the children of Bagega have been waiting for this environmental remediation that makes them eligible for treatment," said Gayton. "It’s not that we don’t want to treat without the remediation, it’s that we

can’t. If there’s no environmental remediation, our medicine is useless. We might as well be giving sugar pills. So there’s nothing we can do for our patients who are suffering and dying.”

Gayton said if cleanup doesn’t begin this month, it could be too late to complete the process before the rainy season begins next year.

Lead-poisoning effects linger

Dr. Paul Eze treats lead poisoning victims at a hospital in Anka, a small city that can be reached from the village of Bagega by motorcycle in about an hour during the dry season. It takes much longer when it rains. He said that

while many children have died from lead poisoning in the region, most infected children survive, although the effects of the poisoning linger.

“Lethargy, unconsciousness. They could also have other neurological impairments, like developmental delay, reduced intelligence. In the long run, some of them eventually develop cerebral palsy and loss of the use of the limbs,

” Eze said.

Despite the horrors lead poisoning can inflict, miners in Bagega say they won’t quit because they need the money to survive.

Hassan Mousa, a miner, said he can now make hundreds of dollars a week - twice what he used to make in a whole year when he was a farmer.

A couple of months ago, he added, his one-year-old baby had a high fever and began to convulse. He rented a motorcycle and spent nearly six hours driving through 20 miles of mud and rain to get help.

Poverty versus illness

Aid workers said they told him to move out of Bagega so the baby could be treated. They said it's typical, though, for parents to risk lead poisoning over extreme poverty, and they're not surprised that Mousa hasn’t left.  

At the mining site, about 20 minutes away by motorcycle through the bush, another miner, Kaminu, said gold mining is the best thing that ever happened to him.  

While his colleagues dig with shovels, raising old plastic jerrycans of rocks out of the narrow pits on ropes, Kaminu prepares for his shift, 8 p.m. to 4 a.m.

He said he has heard of the dangers of lead poisoning, but he’s not concerned because he drinks milk - a treatment that doctors say is not based on medical science.

Other miners are more worried about mining bans the government has threatened to enforce than they are about lead poisoning in the village.

If they don’t clean up the village their children may continue to get sick, they said. But if they shut down the mines, they won't have enough money to survive.

Obama, Romney kick off high-stake second debate

U.S. President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney on Tuesday night kicked off their second presidential debate.

The town-hall-meeting-style face-off, with high stakes for both candidates, took place at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, featuring questions from an audience composed of 82 uncommitted voters selected by Gallup.

he first question was from a 20-year-old college student who asked if he can support himself after graduation. Both Romney and Obama touted their plans to put Americans back to work.

Romney came into the debate with clear momentum behind his back and rising polling numbers, following his commanding performance in the first debate in Denver on Oct. 3.

Commentators say Obama needs to do well in the second debate in order to stop Romney's surge, or the incumbent could see the election slip away.

Chinese Writer Wins Literature Nobel

        Chinese writer Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for literature on Thursday, a move that could help offset a blow to China's image abroad two years after the Nobel Peace Prize went to a Chinese human-rights activist.   
        But the award is already proving to be controversial. The author, whose real name is Guan Moye, has been criticized by some Chinese artists and writers for being too close to Beijing amid debate over state control in the nation's cultural affairs.  

        Mo Yan, whose books are taught in Chinese-literature classes around the world, 'merges folk tales, history and the contemporary' with 'hallucinatory realism,' the Swedish Academy said in a statement on Thursday. He is the first Chinese citizen to win the literature prize. China-born Gao Xingjian, who won the prize in 2000, left in 1987 and won as a French citizen.  
        Mo Yan the pen name is Chinese for 'don't speak'岸couldn't be reached for comment, but he was quoted by the state-run Xinhua news agency Thursday night as saying that he was 'very surprised' at winning the award.  
        The award comes two years after the Norwegian Nobel committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, a jailed Chinese dissident who was the lead author of a manifesto calling for free speech and free elections in China. The move dealt a blow to China's efforts to improve its image abroad and infuriated Beijing, which since then has had icy relations with Norway, where the independent committee that awards the Peace Prize is based. The other Nobel Prizes are all awarded by committees in Sweden. 
        China was also embarrassed in 1989 when the Peace Prize was awarded to the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist religious leader who Beijing accuses of pushing for independence for the Himalayan region.   
        The move comes as China has moved to project its soft power, or influence in media and culture, to other nations to match its standing as the world's No. 2 economy. Critics say its efforts have been hindered by Beijing's tight control over books, movies and television.  
        当前正值中国采取行动向别国显示其“软实力”(在传媒和文化方面发挥影响力）之际，以配得上其世界第二大经济体的地位。批评人士说，这种努力因北京严格控制书籍、电影和电视节目而受到阻碍。  
        Born to farmers in the eastern China province of Shandong in 1955, Mo Yan is among the most celebrated of the generation of Chinese writers to emerge in the years immediately following the Cultural Revolution in the late 1970s. He began writing after joining the People's Liberation Army in 1976 and first gained widespread fame for the 1987 novel 'Red Sorghum,' set in his hometown of Gaomi. The novel was later made into an award-winning film by Chinese director Zhang Yimou.   
        Many of his novels have been translated into English, including 'Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out,' which was nominated for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2007 and won the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature in 2009. His other works include 'Big Breasts and Wide Hips'岸which was banned briefly inside China岸as well as 'Sandalwood Death' and 'The Garlic Ballads: A Novel.'   
        'He has a ribald, rustic fictional voice that he convincingly associates with a rural background,' said Charles Laughlin, a professor of Chinese literature at the University of Virginia. 'But to this he applies an avant-garde fictional vision that gives most of his stories a mythic and absurd quality, revealing influences of William Faulkner and Gabriel Garc赤a M芍rquez.'   
        Celebrated in Chinese literary circles for his slyly subversive style early on in his career, Mo Yan has been criticized in recent years by some other writers and Chinese human-rights activists for failing to use his stature to push for greater freedom of expression in China. At the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2009, he joined other members of the official Chinese delegation in walking out of a seminar where exiled Chinese writers were preparing to speak, and later gave a speech seen by some as making excuses for Chinese censorship. He was also among many writers who participated in producing a hand-copied special edition of Mao Zedong's 1942 talks on art and literature at the Chinese revolutionary stronghold of Yanan岸writings that later formed the basis for the party's propaganda policies. 
        During his speech in Frankfurt, according to an account in the state-run China Daily newspaper, the writer recalled a story in which Beethoven, the composer, found himself walking down the street with the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, when they encountered a gaggle of nobles. Goethe is said to have stepped aside and respectfully doffed his hat, while the brash Beethoven walked defiantly through them.  
        'When I was young, I thought what Beethoven did was great. But, with age, I realized it could be easier to do what Beethoven did, and it might take more courage to do what Goethe did,' China Daily quoted Mo Yan as saying. 
        That conciliatory stance has not sat well with the country's most defiant artists.    
        'For a contemporary writer to avoid the very clear issues of today's struggle is something that's not negotiable. I cannot separate literature from the people's struggle,' said dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in an interview on Thursday.  
        'I cannot blame' the Nobel Prize committee, he added, 'but it's sending out a signal that only reflects bad taste.'   
        Mo Yan is vice chairman of the government-backed China Writers' Association, whose vice president He Jianming sounded a victorious note in an interview with Xinhua. The Nobel 'is not only a joyous occasion for Mo, but also a dream come true for generations of Chinese writers,' he was quoted by Xinhua as saying.
        The award will likely boost Mo Yan's profile abroad--several literary editors in New York on Thursday morning said they were unfamiliar with Mo Yan's work. However, Michael Dirda, who won a 1993 Pulitzer Prize for literary criticism, suggested that the selection is part of a broader process reshaping global culture. 'This is part of the ongoing internationalization of literature,' said Mr. Dirda. 'We are making best sellers from the books of every country of the world.' 
        Penguin Books, an imprint of Pearson PSON.LN +0.56% PLC's Penguin Group (USA) said Thursday that it is reprinting 15,000 paperback copies of Mo Yan's novel 'Red Sorghum' and is exploring acquiring digital rights to the title.  
        Elsewhere, Arcade Publishing, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, said it has five titles available in print and digitally, including the novel 'Big Breasts & Wide Hips,' reissued earlier this year. 'We've now got orders for all copies on hand and we're going to press,' said Cal Barksdale, Arcade's executive editor. 
        A third publisher, the University of Oklahoma Press, in February will publish Mo Yan's novel 'Sandalwood Death,' translated by Howard Goldblatt, as a $24.95 paperback. 'This is a new venture for us, because we focus mainly on the West,' said Steven Baker, managing editor. 
        Like his fellow Nobel laureate Mr. Liu, Mo Yan got a graduate degree in literature from Beijing Normal University, though the two weren't there at the same time. That coincidence was duly noted by users of Sina Corp.'s SINA -0.49% Weibo microblogging platform, where the Nobel news was the No. 1 trending topic Thursday night.
        'Beijing Normal is awesome, producing two Nobel laureates for China,' wrote online commentator Song Shinan in a post that was later deleted. 'Congratulations Mo Yan.'   
        Hundreds of thousands of Weibo users flooded the site with victorious messages and praise for the writer, including former Google China chief Kai-fu Lee, who wrote that he hoped 'Chinese people will win Nobel Prizes in every category.'  
        Others were more circumspect, however.  
      
        'Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize and I congratulate him. A group of people outside of China have validated his literary efforts and accomplishments, and that is all,' wrote well-known independent columnist Zhao Chu. 'At the same time, I'm certain that if [1929 Nobel laureate] Thomas Mann had been a member of the writer's association under the Third Reich and had hand-copied a commemorative edition of Hitler's 'Mein Kampf,' his having been awarded the prize would weaken the value of the Nobel.'  
        Swedish Academy member Per Wästberg said in a chat with readers on the website of Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet that the academy doesn't care about the political views of writers.    
        'All choices岸which are based on literary quality, and nothing else岸are in some way controversial in their effects,' he said, noting Mo Yan's Communist Party membership.  
        Howard Goldblatt, who has translated nine Mo Yan works into English, in an interview called the writer's imagery 'striking' and said Mo Yan isn't a government apologist.    
        'He knows the rules, knows the parameters, as do all writers in China,' said Mr. Goldblatt. 'He doesn't speak for the government. Some of his books have received unpleasant notices from Chinese literary officials and he doesn't care.'   
        Brendan O'Kane, a Beijing-based writer and translator of Chinese fiction, said: 'For Mo and other Chinese authors, it's not a matter of cowardice or bravery; it's a matter of relevance versus irrelevance. Direct criticism of the government, as in the work of [dissident writers] Liao Yiwu or Ma Jian, plays well overseas, but is not realistic for most authors given the state of publisher- and government-enforced censorship in China.'   
        In a 2008 interview in Spanish newspaper El Pa赤s, Mo Yan described the reason for his pen name:   
        'I picked the nickname in memory of the years in which I couldn't say a word to anyone. It was during the turbulent days of the Cultural Revolution, when there were conflicts among people in my village all the time. My father was a farmer, but my family enjoyed a comfortable position, and he was afraid that I may say something inconvenient which could get our family in trouble. So he told me not to speak and to appear to be a mute.'  
        When asked in the El Pa赤s interview when he thought a Chinese writer living and working in China will be recognized with a Nobel Prize, answered, ''Maybe in 100 years.'  
  

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honesty - you and me in the side

as an ancient saying goes: "the letter true in word and resolute in deed." honesty is our first and foremost a man of principle. faith, do not have as vigorous as a hero, it is on my side you, in the campus, in the classroom, in every corner of life, or even just a word, good faith or not, will be able to reflect your personality and quality .
students, you still remember the "crying wolf" fable of the story? a sheep of the children to lie because, ultimately, his flock of sheep are to be eaten by a wolf, and this is not the cost of integrity.
go back to real life, just as we have a certain class of students, his academic performance is very good, work can not be handed over on time. every time english teacher miss wei him to work, he did not pay, and each must pay to ensure that the next time. after a few may be, he still does not jiaozuo ye, teachers began to hate him. it does not matter if poor academic performance, but the students that even the most basic of teachers do not have the credibility, he is not a credit.
speaking of faith, i can proudly say i am a good-looking co-exist with integrity. i remember on one occasion, i look for neighbors to play yu shi-kai, she said, she came to me in the afternoon, shi jia yu agreed. but who would have thought to go home, my mother would take me on waipo jia. i am very contradictory: if i were to play waipo jia, shi-jia-yu, i would say bad faith; if i were at home, such as shi jia-yu came to me, but the grandmother did not have a good time to see me, she will definitely want to i ...... finally, i came up with a way to the best of both worlds, that is, i waipo jia noon to eat, and then in the afternoon and then go play yu shi-kai. so i waipo jia after dinner, they go home fast, just to catch up with a knock-yu shi-kai my house door. i have successfully complied with integrity.
honesty, for us, how important it is to lose it, it means a loss of dignity, loss of the basic principles of life; it has been, it would be tantamount to win a successful life.
friends: good faith to comply with it! do not let your personality jianshang a stain!

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