How do you look for a new job while you are working full-time?

More people are expected to change jobs as the economy recovers, and several readers have asked for advice on the question. One reader is troubled by the shroud of secrecy he must keep up at work while going on interviews. 'I've lied to my boss saying I had a doctor's appointment or another scheduled event when in reality, I'm going on interviews. This makes me feel false,' this reader says. But on the other hand, citing a vague 'appointment' to justify his absences seems 'incredibly suspicious,' he adds.

Another reader says 'the time and mental stress' of a job search 'are very difficult to work into a packed schedule.'

There is no way to avoid some tension and strain when you are trying to jump. Every individual must decide how many specifics to cite in explaining absences to the boss. One way to avoid lying is to simply say, in a confident and businesslike way, that you have 'personal business.' I have seen employees use this excuse to cover needs ranging from infertility treatment to estate planning. Another strategy that may be applicable to some workers is to say you are networking with others in your field, says Kate Wendleton, president of The Five O'Clock Club and an experienced career adviser.

Whatever reason you cite for absences, be confident and assertive; you have a right to some privacy. You can ease any suspicions your boss may have by working harder when you are at the office, showing interest in long-term projects and taking initiative.

Try to gain more control over your schedule by being proactive. Schedule vacation or personal days in advance and try to set interviews and networking appointments on those days. One job-hunter took vacation days every other Friday during her job search and met with at least four people on each day off. Wendleton also suggests setting aside time on evenings and weekends to research target employers and contact them by letter or email, introducing yourself and expressing interest.

Also, push back on prospective employers to avoid missing too much work time. 'Many employers will understand that you have to meet with them in the early morning or very late afternoon because you are working,' Ms. Wendleton says.

However you organize your search, you will have to commit some time. 'Employed people must spend 15 hours a week on their searches to get some momentum going,' typically on evenings and weekends, Wendleton says. 'Otherwise, nothing happens,' she says. 'If you are working 70 hours a week and see no way out of that, you are stuck in your present job.' The Five O'Clock Club's website offers a mini-course on how to organize a job search.

A few more words on ethics: Keeping a job search confidential isn't unethical; it is a practical and professional necessity. 'Your boss will never tell you when he or she is looking for a replacement for you, and doesn't think that is being unethical,' Wendleton says. Letting your intentions be known would undermine your credibility at work and hurt your ability to do your job. Most bosses would 'want you out of there now,' Wendleton adds.

Nissan Motor Co. will claim that its coming Leaf electric car is roughly equivalent to a gasoline-powered vehicle that gets 99 miles per gallon

The window sticker for the Leaf, due to arrive at dealerships in December, also will say the car can go 73 miles on average before it requires a charge.

The sticker -- based on new U.S. government standards -- defines how the Japanese company can advertise the Leaf's driving range. The distance a battery car can go on a charge is among the biggest challenges vehicle makers face as they market electric cars to consumers, who may fear being stuck by the roadside with a dead battery.

The labels, required on all vehicles, give information about a car including the fuel economy as determined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The label normally gives a city and highway miles-per-gallon figure. The Leaf is rated as delivering the equivalent of 106 mpg in city driving and 92 mpg on the highway. The Leaf will receive a 'best' designation for fuel economy and environmental impact by the EPA, Nissan said.

The Leaf is the first vehicle to go through a new EPA rating system that tries to give gas-mileage equivalents for cars powered by alternative energy.

The new system uses a calculation based on the energy equivalence of electricity. It determined that 33.7 kilowatt-hours of electricity are equivalent to a 100-mile range. The Leaf's battery hold 24 kilowatt-hours.

The EPA declined to elaborate on Nissan's rating, other than to verify it. The agency said the mpg equivalent 'expresses the energy consumption of a nongasoline vehicle in terms of how many miles the vehicle could go . . . if it used the same amount of gasoline energy as it used of the nongasoline fuel energy.'

How the EPA would rate electric vehicles was the subject of some controversy last year after General Motors Co. said its Chevrolet Volt might get the equivalent of 230 mpg, to which Nissan shot back that its Leaf would get the equivalent of 367 miles. GM later retracted its estimate.

The rating for the Volt, also due out next month, isn't complete, a GM spokesman said. The Volt is more difficult to rate because it has a gasoline-powered engine to generate electricity and extend the battery range.

The Leaf serves as a test case for how more than 20 electric cars due in the next three years will be rated by the EPA.

An earlier California test that had been used determine the range for electric vehicles produced an exaggerated figure in many cases. For instance, BMW AG's electric Mini E scored a 156-mile range but in actual driving averaged close to 100 miles on a charge.

That same test was the basis of Nissan's prior 100-mile range estimate for the Leaf.

The company is sticking by its earlier estimates that in cold weather with the heater running the Leaf's range could be as low as 62 miles, while in 70-degree weather in stop-and-go traffic, when the batteries are charged through the energy created by braking, it could be 138 miles.

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents raided the offices of three hedge funds as part of a high-profile insider-trading investigation

The offices of Diamondback Capital Management LLC and Level Global Investors LP were raided. Both hedge funds are run by former managers of Steven Cohen's SAC Capital Advisors.

The third firm raided is Loch Capital Management LLC, based in Boston, people familiar with the matter say. Leonard Pierce, a lawyer for Loch Capital, declined to immediately comment.

'The FBI is executing court-authorized search warrants in an ongoing investigation,' said Richard Kolko, an FBI spokesman, who declined to comment further.

Loch had $750 million in assets as of the start of this year, according to SEC filings. The firm, run by brothers Timothy and Todd McSweeney, didn't immediately return a message seeking comment. Leonard Pierce, a lawyer for Loch Capital, declined to immediately comment.

FBI agents raided the offices of three hedge funds -- Diamondback Capital Management, Level Global Investors and Loch Capital Management -- as part of a high-profile insider-trading investigation. Dennis Berman has details.
.The McSweeney brothers are acquaintances with Steven Fortuna, a hedge-fund manager who pleaded guilty in the Galleon case and agreed to cooperate in that ongoing investigation.

Level Global Investors LP is a Greenwich, Conn., hedge-fund firm run by David Ganek, a former SAC Capital trader and art collector. He started Level Global in 2003 and earlier this year reported managing about $4 billion in assets.

Diamondback Capital Management LLC is based in Stamford, Conn., and was started in 2005. It oversees more than $5 billion in assets, according to SEC filings.

The moves by the FBI follow an article by The Wall Street Journal describing an insider-trading investigation that is expected to encompass consultants, investment bankers, hedge-fund and mutual-fund traders. The investigation is said by people close to the situation to eclipse in size and magnitude past insider-trading probes.

Messages left with Richard Schimel, Diamondback's co-chief investment officer, and Diamondback's general counsel, Joel Harary, on their office phones weren't immediately returned.

Macau has overtaken Las Vegas as the gambling capital of the world - more money is bet on tables there than any other place in the world

But while the former Portuguese colony has its sordid corners, it lacks the glossy party atmosphere of its American peer.

The people at Playboy Enterprises want to change that.

Playboy - that he-man brand created in the 1950s by Hugh Hefner that's best known in the West for its magazine - is betting big that its kind of glamour will sell well in this part of Asia. The company is opening its second club, a 1,115-square-meter club in Macau on the penthouse level of the Sands Macau Hotel (its other club is in Las Vegas). There's more in the works: A 2,787-square-meter mansion is planned for Macau in 2012.

But first, Playboy will go looking for bunnies.

We're talking Playboy Bunnies, of course - women clad in skimpy costumes, complete with tight corsets, a tuxedo collar, bunny ears and a cottontail. On Friday, the club hosted a casting call to find the 20 bunnies they need for opening day (scheduled for Nov. 20). According to the organizers, around 600 women from around the world have already applied. Friday's bunny-hunt event was a chance for some of the final candidates to be interviewed, presented to the press, and to have their pictures taken in their swimsuits. The final roster will be announced later.

Denise Pernula, a former bunny and model who posed for the magazine as Miss November 2007, flew from Wyoming to serve as one of the judges. As a bunny for the Playboy club in Las Vegas, which opened in 2006, she says she understands the pressure. The women will be under 'a lot of…stress' to land the job, she says. 'They have to be intelligent, charming, attractive.' As for physique? 'All bunnies come in different shapes and sizes,' she added.

The original Playboy Bunnies were waitresses at the many clubs the company used to run but shut down in the late 1980s. The Bunnies came under fire from many critics, including the feminist Gloria Steinem, who derided the selection and training process - where looks trumped all - as degrading.

In Macau, Playboy is banking on sex appeal, of course. But Reggie Martin, the club's general manager, says that the Macau club will be tailored to its clientele.

'The Asian market is very different from the U.S. market,' said Mr. Martin, an American from Indiana who has lived in Macau for eight years. 'It won't be as crazy as Las Vegas. More chill. Las Vegas has a lot of college-aged people while Macau has more of a mature crowd. It also draws more of a local crowd than a tourist crowd.'

He later added, 'We really want to establish Macau as more than just a gaming destination.'

While Playboy is ingrained in American pop culture and synonymous with sex appeal, in China it has a different image - as a fashion line. The magazine is not sold in China, where pornography is banned, though Playboy has sold clothing with its bunny logo in the mainland for about 20 years. Chinese firewalls keep Playboy's website at bay.

'The Chinese think of us as an American fashion brand,' said Jeff Dougherty, vice president of marketing license group at Playboy. 'But we think they'll be lured by the brand to the club.'

And by the bunnies, of course. Candidates for the job will be interviewed in swimsuits. And Mr. Dougherty said one of the obvious requirements for the job is 'to look terrific in the bunny costume.'

Once the staff is picked, they'll be central to the club and to its identity, just like in its previous ones. 'No matter what time you're in the club, there will be a bunny,' said Mr. Martin. 'Guaranteed.'

In a remote and mountainous part of China's southwest Yunnan province on a cool autumn morning

Donnie Yen, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tang Wei have traveled with the rest of the 200-plus crew to this isolated spot near the border with Myanmar, where they have been camped out since late August.

'Wu Xia,' from director Peter Chan, is a $20 million martial-arts drama slated for release next summer. The story, which takes place during the end of the Qing Dynasty, is about a repentant killer living a simple life in a secluded village and whose past catches up with him.

Mr. Chan, one of Asia's most-successful filmmakers, is looking to put a new spin on the martial-arts genre with 'Wu Xia,' which translates roughly as 'martial-arts chivalry.' He's assembled an A-list cast, two cinematographers, an award-winning costume designer, and a visual-effects team from South Korea to bring what he describes as detailed authenticity to the film. Its ambition underscores the current trend in Chinese cinema toward highly polished blockbusters.

Still, there is little Hollywood glamour out here on location. Filming today is in a tiny village about an hour's drive from Tengchong, a city of several hundred thousand -- relatively small by Chinese standards -- in western Yunnan. Tengchong is home for the cast and crew during the shoot. Getting to today's location involves a convoy of trucks, buses, vans and cars -- all of us sharing the road with villagers and livestock along a series of smooth two-lane highways and bumpy, unpaved paths through fields and forests. To get to the shoot, the crew and cast -- sporting shin-high rubber boots to trek around in the mud -- hike across steep terrain marked by rocks and puddles to the river valley below.

'It's hard going down and exhausting going up,' Mr. Chan says as he arrives on the set.

Rain earlier in the week interrupted filming for a few days, but today the sun is out. 'We've been shooting here for two months and I can't remember a single day other than today that it hasn't rained at least a little bit,' he says. 'We've been fighting the weather all the way through.'

But irony has its revenge: For a scene the next day, the crew has to create rain using two giant hoses.

Actors and dozens of extras roam around the set in period costumes, looking more at home in the rural setting than the crew in their jeans and T-shirts. Curious locals watch the bustle and activity. Their dialect is unfamiliar to most of the crew, who come from places like Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Some villagers from the area have been hired as extras. Li Xingli, a 51-year-old farmer, says she isn't familiar with the movie's star cast. 'But it's fun,' she says with a smile, 'and my husband supports me.'

Ms. Li, in fact, is working alongside three very recognizable actors. Mr. Yen is arguably Asia's leading martial-arts star following a string of recent hits including 'Ip Man' and its sequel, 'Bodyguards and Assassins' and 'Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen.' Mr. Kaneshiro -- this is his third film with Mr. Chan -- has been a top leading man for nearly two decades. Ms. Tang, with just a handful of films to her credit so far, is one of Asia's leading young actresses.

The cast also includes Jimmy Wang Yu, one of Hong Kong's biggest action stars from the 1960s and '70s, in his first film appearance in more than 15 years.

Mr. Chan sits under an orange tent about five meters from the actors. His blue director's chair faces a video monitor that shows what the audience will see. Messrs. Yen and Kaneshiro arrive on the set in full costume -- Mr. Yen dressed as an ordinary villager with a long, single braid of hair that was customary of the era, and Mr. Kaneshiro looking elegant in a gray robe and brimmed hat -- and prepare for a scene on a small cliff over the riverbank. A few takes later, the director and Mr. Yen huddle in front of the monitor to watch a playback. Mr. Yen returns in front of the camera to shoot another take after a couple minutes of quiet discussion, although to the casual observer subsequent takes all look the same.

Mr. Chan later joins Mr. Yen, who also is the movie's action choreographer, for one of the film's action sequences. A character in the scene is pushed over a bridge. Above the heads of the crew, a highway of carefully placed cables and wires are wrapped around the forest trees. The stunt isn't simple. On one end are the men maneuvering the wire, and on the other end a stuntman dangles above the whitewater rapids far below. After several takes, they wrap for the day.

'With Peter Chan, everyone knows it's going to be a powerful, dramatic movie,' Mr. Yen says. 'That's one of the main reasons why I want to be in this film in the first place.'

For Mr. Kaneshiro, he says working with Mr. Chan is more important than the script. 'The character changed as we talked about the script,' he says. 'I didn't know how to do this guy,' but one day they decided to give the character a Sichuan accent and everything fell into place.

Ms. Tang also describes developing her character with Mr. Chan -- a new experience compared with how she has worked on previous films. ''I really love it, because it's really flexible and very similar to film as a student in college.'

During the week, minor mishaps abound on the set: A stunt coordinator slips on a rocky ledge, leaving large scratches along the side of his body; the continuity girl is bitten by a wild dog in a bamboo forest; and an assistant production manager is shoved around by a group of tourists eager to get to a scenic waterfall blocked by the film crew.

'I think working in China is somewhere between Hong Kong and Hollywood,' Mr. Chan says.

Terence Yap, China Security & Surveillance Technology Inc

As a photographer snaps pictures of Terence Yap for this interview, the chief financial officer of New York Stock Exchange-listed China Security & Surveillance Technology Inc. talks about his own passion for taking pictures. 'I like to capture images,' says the 39-year old Mr. Yap, who is an avid amateur photographer. 'I like to take people's expressions, because every picture tells a story.'

Shenzhen, China-based CSST manufactures and installs surveillance and security equipment -- cameras, alarm systems, thermal-imaging equipment, for example -- for corporate clients in China and Chinese government organizations. It also offers a range of security support services, such as monitoring and training services.

The private security industry is growing fast in China and is already worth tens of billions of dollars by most estimates. CSST's revenue has risen from $32.7 million in 2005 to $580.9 million last year. The company estimates that 2010 will see the top line increase by as much as 30%. Founded in 2001, CSST has also gone through 16 acquisitions in the past five years.

'When I first joined [in 2006,] we were close to 200 people. Now we're close to 4,000,' says Singapore-born Mr. Yap.

He recently spoke to Duncan Mavin in Hong Kong about growth businesses, China, and why Lee Kuan Yew is his management hero. The following interview has been edited:

WSJ: When you run a surveillance business in China, but you are listed in New York, are you concerned about reputational risk?

Mr. Yap: We are not that concerned, because we are in China trying to improve safety standards. We are providing tools, we are helping the government improve safety. After all, the safer the environment the more conducive it is for business, and I guess the market understands that as well. We are not part of the government, we are just a provider like any other enterprise. In terms of shareholders -- they all look at your financial performance.

WSJ: What's the biggest challenge facing CSST now?

Mr. Yap: The thing that keeps us awake at night is really trying to make sure everyone pulls in the same direction. When you do acquisitions, most of the people think 'I'm from company A, or company B.' In 2010, at least 1,200 of our employees will go through a training program that talks about the strategy of our company as a whole. We also do an outward-bounds school. They do something like 30 days of team building. Finance manager, operational manager, sales guys, from different companies and different cities, live together for 30 days. At the end of it, they build an esprit de corps.

WSJ: What else are you dealing with?

Mr. Yap: The other challenge is being a Chinese-listed company in the U.S. How you break out from the mold of being a typical Chinese company? We do our best to try to be as transparent as possible. We try to engage more investors. From 2007 to 2009, I used to travel to the U.S. a lot. Not so good for my family, but it has helped in that when we first got a listing in the U.S. [in October 2007], our trading volume was only about a few hundred shares a day. Now we trade almost a million shares a day.

WSJ: Everyone who is running a business in China talks about the difficulty in hiring the right talent. Is this the same for your industry?

Mr. Yap: I see it getting easier, as the market is evolving, starting to mature. You've got people coming back from overseas studies, returning to China. But it will take time. I remember from my days in the Singaporean army, we had different levels -- manpower, intelligence, operations, logistics. Each of them had their own command chain down the platoon. It's the same mentality. If you don't have the right leaders, your people won't be right at all.

WSJ: Who are your management heroes?

Mr. Yap: This is rather political. I'm a Singaporean, and not many people may agree, but I find Lee Kuan Yew is a good example. He has managed to build a country with no resources at all, even though some of his tactics and strategy you may not agree with.

WSJ: What has been your biggest management learning experience?

Mr. Yap: I'm still learning. When I was in the army, I learned to lead by example. You can lead by fear, but they'll never work for you 100%. If you lead by example, they work more for you. Secondly, speak their language. Meaning, understand how they feel, and then they'll respect you more. I also learned that it's important to hold onto your principles.

Sometimes you make decisions your staff might not understand, because you look at things at a holistic level.

At a bar called Weather Up, a group of young women arrive

They aren't here to pick up guys but to pick up tiles-the small tiles decorated with dragons or flowers or Chinese characters that come with the game they're here to play, mah-jongg.

'We're pretending we are old women,' said Sonia Klemperer-Johnson, a 36-year-old analyst at a health-insurance company, as she and her friends take over two tables in the back garden and begin to play.

Mah-jongg's not just for grandma anymore.

Its return comes as Americans are experiencing a wave of early-1960s nostalgia. 'Mad Men,' the cable television series about a boozy, smoky, sexy Madison Avenue in the '60s, has viewers glued to their sets every Sunday night. Familiar board games such as Scrabble, Operation and Battleship are all the rage in some Manhattan bars.

As for mah-jongg, 'It has become the cool game-there is a total buzz about it,' said Faye Scher, who eight years ago started an online business in Katy, Texas, called Where the Winds Blow, to sell mah-jongg games and gifts. Launched in her garage as a hobby, the business has expanded to a 2,400-square-foot warehouse, and sales have quadrupled in five or six years, she said. Games are priced from $80 to $975. Tiles used to be ivory or bone but now mainly are plastic.

Hasbro Inc., the toy manufacturer, says it has seen double-digit growth in its games and puzzles division, fueled in part by strong sales of classic games such as Monopoly, Scrabble and Operation.

Hasbro reported a 22% increase in world-wide revenue in its games and puzzles division in the second quarter-15% for the first half of 2010. The company doesn't sell mah-jongg sets.

At the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, in New York, a mah-jongg exhibit is a popular attraction for busloads of visitors.

'Even as many urban men have embraced poker, young women have started to play mah-jongg again,' said Melissa Martens, curator of the exhibit. She and her colleagues-most in their twenties and thirties-play during their lunch hour.

New York's trendy neighborhoods are a center of interest in the game, but Ruth Unger, president of the National Mah Jongg League, said she's getting new members from around the country.

'We lost a generation,' the 84-year-old Ms. Unger said. Now, membership in her nonprofit organization is up to about 400,000 members, she said, from 100,000 in the dark days of the 1970s and early '80s. 'We have members in small hamlets across the country-South Dakota, you name it.'

In Scottsdale, Ariz., Devin Geser, 29, a tax analyst, has corralled her friends-including a school psychologist and a health-insurance broker-to learn mah-jongg. American mah-jongg is different from its Chinese progenitor.

Both sometimes involve betting. Typically there are four players, who accumulate tiles. The object is to create a winning hand. 'We joke that by the time we are old enough to go on mah-jongg cruises, we'll clean up because we started young,' she said.

Friends, boyfriends and husbands tease them mercilessly. Ms. Geser said that last weekend, a gentleman friend remarked, 'Are you an 83-year-old woman from Miami?'

Enthusiasm for mah-jongg has waxed and waned over the past century. The game was popular in the 1920s, then again in the 1950s and early '60s, when middle-class Caucasian women hosted mah-jongg evenings, decorating their homes with lanterns and dressing up in Chinese-style clothing.

But as more and more women joined the work force in the 1970s, many no longer had time to play mah-jongg for hours at a stretch.

Modern mah-jongg mavens play in parks, at wine bars, in cafés and on the Internet. The National Mah Jongg League hosts an online version of the game you can play day or night, while other sites offer the chance to find partners in your area to play with.

But for many players, the game is still best played the old-fashioned way-seated around a table with three friends and a stiff drink.

Jennifer Raznick, a 30-year-old Spanish teacher at the Professional Children's School in Manhattan, hosts games in her 27th floor apartment in Union Square, which has sweeping views. She typically serves sushi and white wine to her mah-jongg group-mostly friends who met at Emory University in Atlanta, graduated in 2002, and were reunited in Manhattan.

'It started out as a joke; we were embarrassed to say we were playing mah-jongg,' said Ms. Raznick. 'For 27-year-old girls, that is not what we are supposed to do.' Some in her group said that colleagues do a double-take when they hear about their love for mah-jongg.

Ms. Raznick loves playing with her grandmother Zenia Singer. Mrs. Singer, 83, is also thrilled: Most of the women in her mah-jongg group are in their 80s and 90s.

But there are those in the generation that 'skipped' mah-jongg who cast a cold eye on the new fashion-especially when it hits home.

Helene Steinberg, 57, came of age in the late '60s and early '70s. She went to college and graduate school and became a pharmacist. She calls mah-jongg a superficial,frivolous game, and was a bit taken aback to hear her own 29-year-old daughter, Amy, had taken it up.

'I was like, 'Are you sure that is what you want to do?'' she said.

Since the end of the Cold War

A shortage of polycrystalline silicon -- the main raw material for solar panels -- was threatening China's burgeoning solar-energy industry in 2007. Polysilicon prices soared, hitting $450 a kilogram in 2008, up tenfold in a year. Foreign companies dominated production and were passing those high costs onto China.

Beijing's response was swift: development of domestic polysilicon supplies was declared a national priority. Money poured in to manufacturers from state-owned companies and banks; local governments expedited approvals for new plants.

In the West, polysilicon plants take years to build, requiring lengthy approvals. Mr. Zhu, an entrepreneur who raised $1 billion for a plant, started production within 15 months. In just a few years, he created one of the world's biggest polysilicon makers, GCL-Poly Energy Holding Ltd. China's sovereign-wealth fund bought 20% of GCL-Poly for $710 million. Today, China makes about a quarter of the world's polysilicon and controls roughly half the global market for finished solar-power equipment.

Western anger with China has focused on Beijing's cheap-currency policy; President Obama blasted the practice at the G-20 summit in Seoul last weekend. Mr. Zhu's sprint to the top points to a deeper issue: China's national economic strategy is detailed and multifaceted, and it is challenging the U.S. and other powers on a number of fronts.

Central to China's approach are policies that champion state-owned firms and other so-called national champions, seek aggressively to obtain advanced technology, and manage its exchange rate to benefit exporters. It leverages state control of the financial system to channel low-cost capital to domestic industries -- and to resource-rich foreign nations whose oil and minerals China needs to maintain rapid growth.

China's policies are partly a product of its unique status: a developing country that is also a rising superpower. Its leaders don't assume the market is preeminent. Rather, they see state power as essential to maintaining stability and growth, and thereby ensuring continued Communist Party rule.

It's a model with a track record of getting things done, especially at a time when public faith in the efficacy of markets and the competence of politicians is shaken in much of the West. Already the world's biggest exporter, China is on track to pass Japan this year as the second-biggest economy.

Charlene Barshefsky, who as U.S. trade representative under President Bill Clinton helped negotiate China's 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization, says the rise of powerful state-led economies like China and Russia is undermining the established post-World War II trading system. When these economies decide that 'entire new industries should be created by the government,' says Ms. Barshefsky, it tilts the playing field against the private sector.

Western critics say China's practices are a form of mercantilism aimed at piling up wealth by manipulating trade. They point to China's $2.6 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves. The U.S. and the European Union have lodged a series of WTO cases and other trade actions targeting Beijing's policies, and hammer China's refusal to let its currency appreciate more quickly, which they argue fuels global economic imbalances.

Top executives at foreign companies have started griping publicly. In July, Peter Loscher, Siemens AG chief executive, and Jurgen Hambrecht, chairman of chemical company BASF SE, in a public meeting between German industrialists and China's premier, raised concerns about efforts to compel foreign companies to transfer valuable intellectual property in order to gain market access.

Some observers think Beijing's vision is rooted in a desire to avenge China's 'century of humiliation' that started with the 19th-century opium wars. Such critics believe that China's focus on 'indigenous innovation' -- nurturing home-grown technologies -- entails appropriating others' technology. China's high-speed trains, for instance, are based on technology introduced to China by German, French and Japanese makers.

'The Chinese have shown that if they have the ability to kill your model and take your profits, they will,' says Ian Bremmer, president of New York-based consultancy Eurasia Group. His book, 'The End of the Free Market,' argues that a rising tide of 'state capitalism' led by China threatens to erode the competitive edge of the U.S.

So far, though, multinationals aren't staying away, because China remains a vital source of growth for companies whose domestic markets are saturated.

China's strategy echoes the policies Japan employed in its economic rise -- policies that also rankled the U.S. But China's sheer scale -- its population is 10 times Japan's -- makes it a more formidable threat. Also, its willingness in recent decades to open some industries to foreign firms makes its market far more important for global business than Japan's ever was, giving Beijing much greater leverage.

Chinese leaders have begun to acknowledge the backlash. At the World Economic Forum in Tianjin in September, Premier Wen Jiabao said that the recent debate about China among foreign investors 'is not all due to misunderstanding by foreign companies. It's also because our policies were not clear enough.'

'China is committed to creating an open and fair environment for foreign-invested enterprises,' Mr. Wen said.

The state has always played a big role in China's economy, but for most of the reform era that started in the late 1970s, it retreated as state-owned collective farms were dismantled and inefficient state industrial enterprises closed. Accession to the WTO in 2001 represented a big bet by the leadership on liberalizing markets further. The gamble paid off, with growth rocketing much of the past decade.

But the state is again ascendant. Many analysts say the pace of liberalization has slowed, and point to vast swaths of industry still controlled by state companies and tightly restricted for foreigners. The government owns almost all major banks in China, its three major oil companies, its three telecom carriers and its major media firms.

According to China's Ministry of Finance, assets of all state enterprises in 2008 totaled about $6 trillion, equal to 133% of annual economic output that year. By comparison, total assets of the agency that controls government enterprises in France, whose dirigiste policies give it one of the biggest state sectors among major Western economies, were 539 billion euros ($686 billion) in 2008, about 28% of the size of France's economy.

The government's increased involvement in sectors from coal mining to the Internet has spawned the phrase guojin mintui, or 'the state advances, the private sector retreats,' among market proponents in China. A January report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said China's economy had the least competition of 29 surveyed, including Russia's. Prominent Chinese economist Qian Yingyi of Peking University has said he worries over what appears to be 'a reversal of market-oriented reforms in the last couple of years.'

The state's huge role in the economy gives it enormous sway to pursue its policy goals, which are often laid out in voluminous five-year (sometimes 15-year) plans. These relics of the Mao-era command economy are central to the corporate fortunes of Western giants like Caterpillar Inc. and Boeing Co. that rely on the country's market. China is now one of the biggest sources of revenue growth for Caterpillar, and is the biggest buyer of commercial jets outside the U.S., according to Boeing.

One of Beijing's most important goals: wean China off expensive foreign technology. It is a process that began with the 'open door' economic policies launched by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 that brought in waves of foreign technology firms. Companies such as Microsoft Corp. and Motorola Inc. set up R&D facilities and helped train a generation of Chinese scientists, engineers and managers.

That process is now in overdrive. In 2006, China's leadership unveiled the 'National Medium- and Long-Term Plan for the Development of Science and Technology,' a blueprint for turning China into a tech powerhouse by 2020. The plan calls for nearly doubling the share of gross domestic product devoted to research and development, to 2.5% from 1.3% in 2005.

One area of hot pursuit: green technology. China's 'Torch' program fast-tracks industries, attracting entrepreneurs with offers of cheap land for factories, export tax breaks and even a free apartment for three years.

Take the case of Deng Xunming, a China-born U.S. citizen who is a pioneer of America's solar industry and whose innovations light up the first solar-powered billboard on New York's Times Square.

His company, Xunlight Corp., has been nurtured by U.S. financial aid and embraced by politicians eager for the U.S. to win the race to develop new energy technologies. Xunlight has pulled in more than $50 million in state and federal grants, loans and tax credits, partly aimed at bringing needed jobs to Toledo, Ohio, where the company is based.

But two years ago, Mr. Deng, who left China in 1985 to study at the University of Chicago, set up a Xunlight unit on a giant industrial estate near Shanghai. The company now also makes its thin-film solar panels there and employs 100 workers. The panels are exported back to the U.S.

Mr. Deng says he is trying to keep the Chinese operation 'low key.' It isn't mentioned on Xunlight's website, and Mr. Deng declined to comment on the China factory in an interview. 'China will be a good market for the future,' he said. 'But right now, the bigger market is in Europe. We're putting our attention on the Europe and U.S. market. But meanwhile we're developing efforts for the China market,' which could eventually be bigger, he said.

While the state seeks new technology, it also uses control of banking to feed cheap credit to industries it wants to foster. The government sets interest rates for China's bank depositors low relative to rates of growth and inflation. That means Chinese households, through the banks, effectively subsidize the state's industrial darlings.

Privately held telecommunications equipment maker Huawei Techologies Co. has long had its overseas expansion supported by China Development Bank, which in 2004 extended a five-year, $10 billion credit line and routinely lends money to foreign buyers to finance their purchases of Huawei products. Revenue has risen more than 200% in the past five years, and it has become one of the top three telecommunications companies, along with Nokia Siemens Networks and Telefon AB LM Ericsson.

Sprint Nextel Corp. recently excluded Huawei and fellow Chinese telecom company ZTE Corp. from a contract worth billions of dollars, prompted by U.S. fears that the companies have ties to China's military. The Sprint decision was a setback for Huawei in the one major market it has had difficulty penetrating, the U.S., and shows how mounting concerns over China's policies are starting to exact a cost.

Huawei has also faced complaints in Europe that Chinese government backing gives it an unfair advantage. Both Huawei and ZTE have said their equipment poses no threat to U.S. security, and deny benefiting unfairly from government support.

For China, the biggest risks may be internal. Some attempts to generate high-tech breakthroughs by fiat have fizzled. A drive to produce a home-grown microprocessor took years to replicate features of those from Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., whose products had continued to evolve. A Chinese-developed mobile phone technology has yet to gather significant momentum abroad, despite the government forcing China's largest phone company to adopt it.

£50,000-a-year can buy you happiness – after that it’s down to you

Money can buy you happiness but only if you earn £50,000 a year – after that you really have to work for it, a study claims.
Earning less than that amount can make you miserable – but earning more does not greatly increase enjoyment of life, it was found.
Researchers found that life contentment only rose steadily with annual income up to level – $75,000, or just below £50,000.
Once earnings soared above this the important things in life such as family and wellbeing made money much less significant
The quality of the randomly-selected participants' everyday experiences did not improve significantly beyond a salary of £48,960.98.
But as income dropped from that amount, respondents reported decreasing happiness and increasing sadness and stress, according to the findings published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The psychologists Prof Daniel Kahneman and Prof Angus Deaton explained people's life evaluations rise steadily with income but the quality of emotional daily experiences levels-off once earnings reach a certain amount.
Life evaluations were measured by asking 1,000 respondents to rate their lives on a scale of zero to 10 while emotional wellbeing was measured according to experiences of certain positive and negative emotions the previous day.
The data also suggested the emotional pain of unfortunate events or circumstances including disease, divorce and being alone are exacerbated by poverty.
The researchers said the study does not imply people's lives will not improve after a raise in annual income from $100,000 (£64,900) to $150,000 (£97,350).
But above a certain income people's emotional wellbeing is held back by other more important issues.
Prof Kahneman and Prof Deaton, of Princeton University, New Jersey, said: "The question of whether 'money buys happiness' comes up frequently in discussions of subjective wellbeing in both scholarly debates and casual conversation.
"More money does not necessarily buy more happiness, but less money is associated with emotional pain.”

One in four are still in touch with their childhood best friend

A quarter of Britons are still in touch with their first best friend from childhood, a new study suggested today.
One in four said they were still in contact with their closest pal from primary school, according to the friendship poll.
The survey of 1,050 adults found the average Brit only counted five of their current day acquaintances as 'close friends'.
Women were more likely to keep the same friends as they went through life, with three in 10 still close to their first best friend, compared with two out of 10 men.
But females also appeared more selective when it came to who they counted as friends, with men averaging one more close friend among their immediate circle than the fairer sex.
The study by snack maker Pom-Bear to highlight its 'Let Make Friends' campaign revealed some marked differences in friendship patterns across the country.
Four out of 10 in the North East were still close to their first best friend from school, compared with just two out of 10 people in the North West, Yorkshire and Humberside and the South West.
People living in the North West and the Midlands were found to have been the most fickle in collecting 'best friends' through their school years, with a third of respondents from each region admitting they had counted no fewer than five 'best mates' along the way.
Londoners claimed to have the largest circle of friends as adults with more than six each, compared with those in the South West who averaged less than four.
Respondents aged 18 to 34 and the over-55s claimed to have the greatest number of friends.
Roxanne Amir-Mohammadi, brand manager from Pom-Bear said: 'Even though many of us can count many more people in our wider circle of acquaintances, we are still quite choosy when it comes to defining who we consider to be our real friends.
'It also appears that the busiest years of our working lives take their toll when it comes to staying in touch with friends with people aged between 35 and 44 averaging less than four friends each.'

Two major accounting firms in Hong Kong have merged. But it's not clear how many people actually noticed

'It's probably the style of our profession,' Albert Au, chairman and CEO of BDO Ltd, told China Real Time. His firm and Grant Thornton, the fifth and sixth largest accounting firms in Hong Kong, respectively, joined forces in October, but the event managed to generate virtually no media coverage. 'Generally it's not good when accountants are in the headlines,' said Au.

Grant Thornton managed to make a few unwanted headlines late last year when news leaked out that its former partner Gabriel Azedo disappeared (he still hasn't surfaced) after two clients filed writs against him.
One of the writs is seeking a total of US$11.7 million for breach of trust, breaches of fiduciary duty and acts of fraud. The other is seeking US$2.3 million.

Grant Thornton's merger with BDO could help shed the legacy of the Azedo scandal, says Brian Lee, director and financial controller of Richfield Group Holdings Ltd., and director and chairman of Ione Holdings Limited. Richfield, a real-estate investment holding company, is a client of Grant Thornton, and Ione, an investment holding company engaged in financial printing services, is a client of BDO.

Lee believes the merger is the right move. 'It's a global network for us, it gives us a much better, much bigger network,' he said.

Aside from increasing payroll, BDO isn't paying anything to acquire Grant Thorton's client list and staff, which will increase BDO to about 1,100 employees and 70 partners.

'There is no goodwill payment of any kind,' Au said. 'I like to think they are voting with their feet. By that, I mean they think they're joining a platform they have commitment to and believe in.' Clients were informed of the change and had the option to find another accounting firm. All clients have stayed with Grant Thornton for this merger.

'Our decision is not based on Gabriel,' said Patrick Rozario, CEO of Grant Thornton. 'Even with Gabriel around, we would've made the same decision. It's a good byproduct at least that the [Grant Thornton] name isn't there anymore.'
Rozario added that at the end of the day, Grant Thornton in Hong Kong will still be tied to the world-wide firm by litigation stemming from the AWOL Mr. Azedo.

It's a bid odd that none of the major media covered it when the merger was announced. Possible reasons? Neither party held a press conference. The press releasedated Oct. 7 wasn't distributed through usual channels, although the firms did place two quarter-page ads in the local press on Oct. 8.

'To be honest, we don't have a sophisticated media division,' Au said, 'so I think our marketing department just did it through a media company that I guess in turn helped disseminate it.'

On Wednesday, about a month after the joint press release, the South China Morning Post featured a front-page articledescribing the merger as a mass poaching of staff by BDO, 'the biggest such raid in the city's accounting sector.'

'It's a bit sensational,' Au said, adding there was no raid. 'Poaching is I pick a few heads here and there,' he said. 'What you're seeing here is the whole firm, meaning the partners and staff, coming to join us in BDO.'

From here, both Au and Rozario are hoping to be a formidable threat in Hong Kong to the Big Four in accounting: Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and KPMG, all of which did declined to comment or didn't return phone calls.

World Leaders Pledge to Combat Food Crisis

World leaders at a UN summit in Rome have pledged to reduce trade barriers and boost agricultural production to combat a global food crisis. At the end of a 3-day world food security summit in Rome, delegates approved a declaration resolving to ease the suffering caused by soaring food prices.

　
It was no easy matter for the delegates at the world food security summit in Rome to reach an agreement on a final declaration to ease increasing hunger in the world. Nearly 5,000 representatives from more than 180 countries spent three days discussing how to ease the suffering caused by soaring food prices.

　
Delegates held their talks at the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization. At the end of a long third day, an agreement was reached. FAO Director General Jacques Diouf had said at the start of the conference that the time had come for action.

"We have approved a declaration, you know that it has not been very easy as usual and, in addition, during the discussions, the third elements of the global framework for action, global framework for action, that document was also presented in the framework of the task force," he said.

He added that what essentially was reached at the Rome conference was a political declaration of intent to ease hunger. The document calls for swift help for small-holder farmers in poor countries who need seed, fertilizers and animal feed in time for the approaching planting season. But it remains to be seen if the words adopted in Rome will translate into changed farm or trade policies at home.

Diouf said the gathering wasn't a pledging conference but billions of US dollars from countries, regional banks and the World Bank were promised to combat hunger.

"At the closing of the conference the representative of the United States indicated that they would be committing 5 billion US dollars over the next years in support of agriculture and food security," he said.

Some Latin American countries have raised strong objections to the declaration. These included Cuba that was disappointed the document does not criticize the long-standing U.S. embargo against the Communist-run island.

　
Argentina was unhappy over the language about trade barriers. It says the declaration does not blame farm subsidies in the US, European Union and other Western food-producers for a major role in driving up prices.

　
Delegates at the summit also discussed the contentious issue of biofuels, recognizing that there are both "challenges and opportunity."