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The women gathered in the kitchen, enjoying brie and chocolate tortes as they told stories about their high school rings and pieces of jewelry given to them by ex-husbands and boyfriends. But they weren’t just reminiscing for old times’ sake.

The guests at Cheryle Podgorski’s “gold party” were there to trade in their old jewelry for cash.

Gold parties, the recession answer to Tupperware parties, have become increasingly popular around the country as people cast about for ways to raise money. A professional gold buyer tests and appraises the guests’ jewelry and then pays them on the spot.

Guests say getting together with friends in somebody’s living room makes it a fun, social occasion, and feels more respectable than hocking their rings, necklaces and brooches at seedy pawn shops or selling them back to jewelry stores.

“It’s terrific because it’s a little bit intimidating to think about walking into a jewelry store, even though they may be heavily advertising it, and, you know, to someone that you don’t know and turning over your valuables to them,” said Pat Walsh, a 56-year-old retired store manager from Simsbury, Conn.

Walsh went home with $286 after selling a pinky ring she received as a wedding favor 35 years ago, circle-linked bracelets, broken necklaces and a few large, mismatched or outdated earrings.

Gold prices are close to their highest levels on record, hovering around $900 per ounce, up from $400 five years ago. Analysts say investors looking for a safe haven for their money while the stock market is in a meltdown could keep gold prices high for some time.

That — together with aggressive advertising by online scrap gold buyers, jewelry stores and gold party organizers — has led many people to clean out their jewelry boxes and dresser drawers.

Several companies are mining the phenomenon, which first began to thrive in Michigan a couple of years ago amid the struggles of the auto industry. My Gold Party LLC now has at least 35 representatives running parties in 21 states and is looking for more, said January Thomas, co-owner of the Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich.-based company.

“It’s definitely a growing trend. I mean, the economy is not getting any better,” Thomas said.

The gold buyer at Podgorski’s party, Maggie Percival, said she started organizing parties this year as a representative of My Gold Party to raise money to send her son to college. She soon learned that gold parties can carry an element of risk for organizers.

“I’ve actually given money to people for stuff that isn’t gold because I didn’t test it properly. That was when I was a newbie. I’ve gotten much better at it,” Percival said. “I had to pay the price for that one.”

In front of the guests, Percival uses a jeweler’s magnifying loupe to assess the gold, a digital meter to test whether it is real, and an electronic scale to weigh it.

At Podgorski’s party, women laughed as they narrated stories behind their jewelry, which included gifts from ex-husbands and boyfriends who no longer inspired fond memories, 1960s cocktail rings that a man gave to his wife before they divorced, and a souvenir from a high school trip to Russia.

“Somebody at a party last week had a pre-engagement ring from her boyfriend before her husband, and her 14-year-old daughter wanted the ring, and she said, ‘If your father ever saw you with that ring on you, he’d kill me,’ so she sold it,” Percival said.

The gold-buying services typically are not interested in the jewelry itself. Instead, they sell the items to gold refiners to be melted down.

The gold party host and gold buyer generally get a 10 percent cut. Podgorski made $300 at her party, which she said she donated to a charity she runs that provides free prom dresses to high school girls who cannot afford one.

“It’s fun, it’s something different. It’s not a Tupperware party, it’s not Pampered Chef,” said Jennifer Phillips, a 39-year-old high school suspension supervisor and mother of six, who made $321 on her gold sales.

Alona Bloom, a 34-year-old mother of two and a teacher’s assistant in Pittsburgh, recently sold old jewelry at a friend’s gold party. Bloom thought she would leave with $100 but walked out with $700.

Now, she is working to organize her own party to earn the 10 percent commission. She would like at least 10 sellers but has found just eight so far.

“A lot of people have already sold their gold,” Bloom said.

Japan tested a 4-month-old U.S. baby who tested positive for A strain flu preliminary but said it is unlikely to have been infected with the influenza A/H1N1, Japanese government sources said Sunday.

The baby arrived at the Yokota Air Base in Tokyo from the United States on a U.S. military-chartered plane on Friday and tested positive for the type A influenza virus in a preliminary examination.

The baby and the mother were isolated after the first tests proved positive, the Foreign Ministry has said.

Test samples from the infant were taken to the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Tokyo from the base on Saturday for detailed tests.

Kyodo News said in an early Sunday report that the results of the genetic screening showed that it is unlikely the baby has the influenza A/H1N1, citing unspecified government sources.

Japan earlier clarified the country’s first suspected case, a Yokohama high-school student, was a false alarm. It has no confirmed case of the new strain of the influenza A/H1N1 up till now.

For Filipino singer Gary Valenciano, pop superstar Michael Jackson’s untimely death was particularly poignant.

The performer, who was in Beijing at the start of a China-wide tour, is known as the Michael Jackson of the Philippines.

“I really feel like a part of me has also died,” says Valenciano. “I don’t know how long the pain will last.”

Valenciano was in Beijing to take part in the “Rhythms of Love and Friendship” concert organized by the Philippine Embassy in Beijing to celebrate the 34th anniversary of Sino-Philippines diplomatic relations.

Valenciano embarked on his singing career when Jackson’s Thriller album was released in 1983. As a lean and lanky 18-year-old who had all of Jackson’s moves and Al Jarreau’s vocal pyrotechnics down pat, he was an immediate success.

Now in his 26th year in showbiz, he spends at least three months on tour, winning audiences over with his spirited singing and dancing. He says inspiring those who are in need makes him happy.

But despite having the world at his feet, he remains philosophical about his career, treating every performance as if it would be his last.

“Life is quite short. You may die suddenly someday,” says the 45-year-old. “What I can do is to connect fully with my audience through powerful music every time I go on stage.”

This current run is his second visit to Beijing, a city he finds has changed rapidly in the two years since he was last here.

“The Chinese are making extraordinary history,” he says. “I am very honored to increase understanding between people in the two countries through music, the universal language.”

He finds the history of Beijing particularly appealing, compared to the gleaming modern skylines of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei. One of his ambitions is to climb the Great Wall.

“I won’t get tired,” he says. “In Taipei, I did a lot of mountain biking before my show. It helps me to understand local culture and to communicate with my audience.”

On his show in the Star Live, a concert hall in Beijing, two weeks ago, he displayed energetic dance moves which have also earned him the nickname “Mr Pure Energy”. The women in the audience swooned and shrieked in pure delight and men watched enviously.

Valenciano says he cherishes his life and that of the people around him. One of the beneficiaries of his largesse are children in need. He has given money to enable rural communities to have easy access to drinking water and helped youngsters in conflict-affected communities to get a good education.

He was chosen in 1998 to be the first UNICEF National Ambassador of Goodwill for the Philippines, a position he still holds with pride.

“I want to write another album for children this year which includes issues about love, pride and success and present it to UNCEF to encourage people,” he says.

To date, Valenciano has released 26 albums such as Out Of The Dark for English speaking audience, Dancin’ In The Moonlight for the Japanese market, “Outside Looking In” for Asia and “I Will Be Here” for Singapore.

Born to a Puerto Rican mother and Filipino father, Valenciano is a versatile artist, being a singer, songwriter, musician and actor.

“Music hasn’t stopped playing its role in changing my life,” he says. “It strengthens me, encourages me, directs me and keeps me company in difficult moments - and it will continue to do so until I meet my Creator.”

The 15th Shanghai Television Festival opened Monday night at the Shanghai Grand Theater with a gusto signaling a bright future for the local movie and television industry.

Amid the ongoing financial crisis, the bourgeoning Chinese movie and TV market is turning out to be a huge draw for overseas companies and exhibitors. A total of 130 TV stations, filming and publishing companies have registered for the event, including US-based Disney Company, Warner Bros and NHK from Japan.
The five-day festival, filled with top domestic and international documentaries and TV serials, will feature a serial of events such as the Magnolia Awards, DocuChina selection and seminars.

The Magnolia Awards consists of 24 awards ranging from TV films, documentaries, and animation to TV serials, and more than 50 entries from world over will compete for the awards.

The 15-member jury includes senior producers, directors, actors and critics, with Chinese director Zheng Xiaolong leading the jury panel.

TV series such as Lurk and My Chief and My Regiment have received the most nominations.

Also at the festival, the Magnolia Forum, which takes a global perspective on the television industry, will feature topics on new media, trends in TV production and animation industry.

The New Media and International Broadcasting Equipment Market will also be held from June 9 to 11 at the Shanghai Exhibition Center, with many cutting-edge equipments and sophisticated TV terminal units on display.

Over the past few years, this event has been expanding in scale and has turned into a market platform for cross-industry technological exchanges and development.

The International Broadcasting Technology Conference (IBTC), an important academic event of the 15th Shanghai TV Festival, will also be held during the exhibition.

“We are hoping to bring more youth back to television with the help of many new media forms,” says Teng Junjie, an official with the organizing committee of the festival.

The opening day of the Shanghai TV Festival was marked by an impressive performance from Chinese pop singers Sun Nan and Mao A’min.

Opponents are gearing up for a battle against U.S. President Barack Obama’s health care plan.

Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, an advocacy group, has been running television ads saying Washington wants to create a system similar to that of the United Kingdom and Canada, where, the ads claim, patients are subjected to long waits for care and have difficulty obtaining prescription medicine.

Another organization, Americans for Prosperity Foundation, also began a new campaign called Patients United Now, seeking to “educate citizens about the threat of government controlled health care.”

For its part, the Obama administration sought over the weekend to influence legislation when advisers David Axelrod and Austan Goolsbee appeared on CNN to address the issue.

The president “made a very strong case for the proposal that he put on the table,” Axelrod said.

This is just the start of a bitter debate that will heat up as Congress nears the completion of a bill to overhaul the health care system — Obama’s No. 1 domestic priority, experts said.

In a recent letter to the heads of congressional committees charged with writing the bill, Obama outlined what he believes the legislation should contain.

Provisions included a government insurance plan that individuals can buy into and a “health insurance exchange” that would bring individuals and insurers together and allow people to choose a plan to fit their budget.

A draft bill released Friday by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s health committee would require employers to cover workers or pay a fine. The bill would also provide subsidies to help the poor pay for health care, assure patients the right to choose their own doctor and require all Americans to purchase insurance, except those who can not afford it.

Insurers would not be permitted to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions and there would be caps on their profits. They would also compete with a new government sponsored “affordable access” plan that would offer care to those not eligible for Medicaid or Medicare.

While the bill is not yet finalized, opponents argue it could spell the end for small insurers. Companies could opt to pay the proposed penalty instead of providing expensive insurance for employees, said Robert Moffit, director of the Center for Health Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C. think tank.

Smaller insurers could lose customers and close their doors, depriving Americans of choice and quality in seeking health care insurance, he said.

Another problem is that the plan will be a creation of Congress, which means the government will play a larger role in people’s lives and it could leave patients with few contractual rights, he said.

“You can’t take the government to court in most cases,” he said.

Patients could also find themselves mired in red tape just to see a specialist, some have argued.

Ellen-Marie Whelan, senior health policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, noted, however, that Obama’s proposed “health care exchange” is a market-based approach that does not represent a government takeover.

Most workers are already covered by their employees, an arrangement that is unlikely to change, she added.

Larry Kocot, deputy director of the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C. think tank, said he sees no evidence that Obama’s plan would diminish the quality of the health care system.

Apprehension, he contended, could stem from special interest groups afraid of losing out as a result of any change in the status quo.

“When you have that much money involved, any thought of changing the system and squeezing out inefficiencies is going to (cause concern),” Kocot said.

Indeed, cutting costs is among the goals topping reformers’ agenda. “The amount we spend on health care it is growing out of control,” Kocot said.

The cost of health care — paid by individuals, businesses and the government — is expected to climb from nearly 18 percent of GDP in 2009 to around 20 percent, or 4.4 trillion , by 2018. It is expected to outstrip GDP growth by around 2 percent per year, according to government figures.

If the United States can curb those numbers by 1.5 percent a year, the nation could save 2 trillion dollars over the next decade, Kocot said.

But allowing current spending trends to continue would be more expensive than any new system, he said.

Whelan said patients receive a myriad of unneeded and expensive high-tech services that insurance companies are covering and doctors are ordering. Part of the reason is that neither party knows what works and what does not, she said.

But other experts said cutting such services to save money could slow progress in medical innovation.

U.S. pharmaceutical firms are the world’s leaders in research and development and their research is a costly endeavor, said Tevi Troy, former deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and visiting senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank.

If Congress tries to limit costs by discouraging the development of expensive new technologies, “that could contribute to the drying up of investments in critical (research and development) and thus harm innovation,” he said.

“Some of these cost-cutting measures, if they reduce the development of new life-saving technologies, could therefore end up costing us more in the long run,” he said.

Hospitals could also lose out, as a large portion of their income comes from private insurers, he said.

Troy also said that while access to health care remains an issue, it is somewhat miscast in the public debate.

While proponents of Obama’s outlook often cite the nearly 50 million uninsured Americans, not all of them are needy, Troy said. About 25 percent of those are “healthy and wealthy” and another 20 percent are already eligible for some sort of government health care assistance but are not taking advantage of it, he said.

China will add 10,000 new consumer price index survey (CPI) locations in an effort to make the statistic more reliable.

Liu Jianwei, vice dean with the department of urban social and economic survey of the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBSC) said Tuesday that it is planning to have a total of 60,000 survey spots.

Because of recent criticism of how China calculates its CPI, the bureau invited journalists to see how it calculated May’s number after collecting and processing nearly 800 trillion consumer price figures from China’s 31 provinces. The results will be released Wednesday.

Ma Jiantang, head of the NBSC previously said the bureau is trying to eliminate the public’s “mysterious impression” of China’s CPI statistic.

Currently, the NBSC has 3,000 people who gather prices from almost 600 items of commodities and services from roughly 50,000 survey spots at more than 550 counties and cities across the country, said Liu.

“Price collectors visit markets regularly, making efforts to control errors within a narrow scope that will not effect the statistical results,” said Liu.

As a significant economic figure, the country’s CPI calculation is based on the bureaus own calculations not each provinces reported data.

NBSC’s price collectors conduct sampling at retail stores, open fairs, and service networks at fixed times and places in each selected city or district, according to Liu.

Every month figures are transmitted via an internal computer system to a collection team within each province. It is their job to then inspect and transfer statistical results to the NBSC.

The NBSC conducts logical and spot checks on the results, making further investigations if it finds any contradictions between data and the market trends, said Liu.

Moreover, the establishment of a new CPI weight is under way, Liu added.

A domestic company’s purchase of the gas-guzzling Hummer brand is against China’s economic situation and the country’s development, said an official with the Development Research Center of the State Council, the country’s Cabinet Tuesday.

“If the Chinese company is just trying to stir media hype, that is understandable; if it really takes this step to buy, relevant departments should be strict and cautious with the approval, or reject the application if necessary,” said vice director Lu Zhongyuan, at the China Opening-up Forum in Ningbo of eastern China’s Zhejiang Province.

Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co., which is based in southwestern Sichuan Province, said last Wednesday that it was buying Hummer and a preliminary deal had been inked.

“Buying a fuel-hungry and high-emission brand is directly against the current trend of energy saving and emission reduction,” Lu said.

“The entire society should form the concept of energy-saving and environmental protection, no matter producers, investors, or consumers,” he added.

The preliminary deal for a little-known Chinese company to buy Hummer from General Motors has triggered doubts and criticism from analysts.

Tengzhong has no experience in the passenger-vehicle market and mainly produces industrial machinery.

Tokyo stocks fell Thursday for the seventh straight trading day on the yen’s sharp appreciation against the dollar.

The benchmark Nikkei-225 index lost 129.69 points, or 1.38 percent, from Wednesday to 9,291.06, its lowest closing since May 22.

The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange was down 14.63 points, or 1.65 percent, to an eight-week closing low of 873.91.

The seven-day losing streak is the longest on the Tokyo markets for more than 10 months.

Stocks declined almost across the board, led by securities, banking and consumer finance issues. The only gainers were sea transport, and electricity and gas issues.

The yen, which rose to 92 yen range Thursday, dealt a blow to Japanese exporters, whose profits were eroded when repatriated home.

Electronics giant Sony lost 65 yen, or almost 3 percent, to 2,250 yen, while industry bellwether Toyota Motor was down 70 yen, or about 2 percent, to 3,400 yen.

Plunging oil prices on the international markets sent the oil refineries share prices down, with Japan Petroleum Exploration sliding 170 yen, or nearly 4 percent, to 4,520 yen and trading house Marubeni retreated about 2 percent.

Toshiba bucked the trend, climbing about 4 percent, or 12 yen, to 341 yen, while another battery maker GS Yuasa, the day’s value leader, edged up 5 yen, or about 1 percent, to 807 yen. Volume leader Mizuho Financial Group lost 6 yen, or close to 3 percent, to 206 yen.

Brokers said in the short term the market is likely to remain sluggish until there is new evidence to show the economy is recovering quicker-than-expected.

On the First Section, declining issues overwhelmed advancing ones 1,318 to 293, with 86 others remaining unchanged.

Trading volume on the main section came to 2.080.17 million shares, down from Wednesday’s 2,128.25 million.

The TSE’s Second Section index was down 10.98 points, or 0.50 percent, to 2,170.29 on a volume of 96.00 million shares. On the Osaka Securities Exchange, the near-term September Nikkei 225 index futures contract was down 100 points to 9,310.

Certain proteins found in the yellow garden pea appear to help lower blood pressure and delay, control or even prevent the onset of chronic kidney disease, at least in rats, a Canadian study has found.

“What we seem to have here is sort of a natural approach to treating this disease, as opposed to the normal pharmacological approach,” said the study’s lead author, Rotimi E. Aluko, an associate professor in the department of human nutritional sciences at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. “We’re talking about an edible product, not a drug, which can help to reduce blood pressure and, at the same time, reduce the severely negative impact of kidney disease.”

Aluko and his colleagues were to present their findings Sunday at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting in Salt Lake City. The study was underwritten by several Canadian government entities.

Kidney disease affects an estimated 13 percent of American adults, the authors noted, and is a notoriously difficult disease to treat, with most people eventually succumbing to cardiovascular complications from high blood pressure linked to kidney malfunction.

Because of this, the researchers focused on the potential effect on blood pressure that might come from peas, long-heralded as a cholesterol-free source of fiber and protein.

After purifying a mix of yellow garden pea proteins, collectively called “pea protein hydrolysate,” the researchers spent eight weeks feeding the derivative to rats that had kidney disease.

They found that blood pressure dropped 20 percent in the rats treated with the pea protein mixture, compared with the blood pressure of untreated rats.

They also found that urine production, which can be severely curtailed by kidney function breakdown, improved by upwards of 30 percent among the treated rats.

Despite the positive findings, the researchers do not advocate the ad hoc consumption of yellow green peas. They explained that a complex protein purification process is needed to activate what is otherwise a dormant vegetable benefit.

The pea protein would need to be mixed with certain enzymes into a food additive or nutritional supplement in liquid or pill form. In that form, Aluko said, it might be easier to tolerate than blood pressure drugs, given the pea protein’s natural sourcing. A natural treatment, he said, would also eliminate the risk for overdosing.

He said that human trials are underway and that, if successful, a pea-based therapy might be available in two to three years.

Dr. George Bakris, director of the hypertensive diseases unit at the University of Chicago, described the finding as “fascinating.”

“This is not the first time that the secret to blood pressure control has been found in Mother Nature,” Bakris noted. “Ten years ago, a substance was isolated in celery, for example, that also had a controlling effect. But here what they seem to have shown is that there is a substance in this pea, when cleaved, which works in a similar fashion to the ACE inhibitors that have been out for the last 25 years. So basically, they have a natural substance that works like standard drugs we know a lot about.”

“Of course, we have to see what the human studies show, ” Bakris cautioned. “But if the results are as compelling as they were in animals, then this would potentially be a very reassuring, exciting and positive development as it is certainly very difficult to control blood pressure in people with kidney disease.”

China has become the biggest market for Kopenhagen Fur, the world’s third largest fur provider.

The company will continue to increase its presence in the country by teaming up with local designers and fashion companies, said Chen Weixian, general manager of Kopenhagen Fur China.

The luxury fur operator has grown in China since first coming to the country 20 years ago and the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong currently accounts for almost 40 percent of its sales. Most of the company’s Chinese customers are fur manufacturers and fashion companies.

Kopenhagen Fur cooperates with top Chinese designers such as Frankie Xie (the first Chinese fashion designer to hold an individual fashion show during Paris Fashion Week and co-creator of luxury women garment brand Jefen) and with established domestic fashion brand such as Northeast China’s Ne Tiger to help build its market share in China. It’s a strategy Chen says the company will continue.

“We are in the process of evaluating more Chinese fashion designers to work with,” he said.

Kopenhagen Fur will also participate in the CHIC fashion show in Beijing on March26-29 to increase its profile, he added.

“The company (Kopenhagen fur) is devoted to cultivating close relations with its downstream companies, helping the foreign raw material supplier gain ground in China, which is a complicated market with huge potential,” said Yu Jie, a garment industry analyst with Everbright Securities.

Kopenhagen Fur tries to get a leg up on its competition by providing fur training and education for customers.

The company opened Tsinghua Kopenhagen Studio in January 2007, which teaches students of the Academy of Art and Design (affiliated with Tsinghua University) how to work with fur in the fashion industry.

“Graduates from Tsinghua University have an impact on the Chinese fashion industry and they make important contributions to the development of Chinese design,” said Torben Nielsen, managing director of Kopenhagen Fur.

The company would not say how much it spends on the studio.

But the drooping global economy is squeezing Kopenhagen Fur, said Chen.

“We have felt the impact of the downturn. In our February auction (the company holds five a year) the prices dropped by more than 20 percent,” acknowledged Chen.

But the company was at least still able to sell out all its offerings, he added.

Fur garment sales in China, mostly in northern China, came down by 10 percent in volume. Top retailers and manufacturers were less affected than smaller ones.

“General speaking, we were satisfied with our sales given the current situation,” said Chen.

The fur sector is often condemned by environmentalists and conservationists but Chen said that green fur farming is a long tradition in Denmark and the relevant technology does little ecological harm.

“Fur farming is an important agricultural sector that contributes a lot to the Danish economy. In China there are also a lot of fur farmers. Fur farming is the livelihood of millions of farmers,” he said.

The luxury fur provider is a cooperative owned by approximately 1,600 Danish fur breeders and located in Glostrup just outside Copenhagen. The cooperative offers around 18 million mink skins as well as fox, swakara, chinchilla, seal, sable, rex rabbit and karakul skins at its five annual auctions, making it the third biggest luxury fur auction house in the world, behind American Legend Cooperative in Seattle and Toronto Fur.