Bracelet news, Bracelet new, Bracelet weblogs, Bracelet blog

The films of Paul Newman include:

“The Silver Chalice,” 1954.

“Somebody Up There Likes Me,” 1956.

“The Rack,” 1956.

“The Helen Morgan Story,” 1957.

“Until They Sail,” 1957.

“The Long Hot Summer,” 1958.

“The Left-Handed Gun,” 1958.

“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” 1958.

“Rally ‘Round the Flag, Boys!” 1958.

“The Young Philadelphians,” 1959.

“From the Terrace,” 1960.

“Exodus,” 1960.

“The Hustler,” 1961.

“Paris Blues,” 1961.

“Sweet Bird of Youth,” 1962.

“Hemingway’s Adventures of a Young Man,” 1962.

“Hud,” 1963.

“A New Kind of Love,” 1963.

“The Prize,” 1963.

“What a Way to Go,” 1964.

“The Outrage,” 1964.

“Lady L,” 1965.

“Harper,” 1966.

“Torn Curtain,” 1966.

“Hombre,” 1967.

“Cool Hand Luke,” 1967.

“The Secret War of Harry Frigg,” 1968.

“Rachel Rachel,” (director) 1968.

“Winning,” 1969.

“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” 1969.

“WUSA,” 1970.

“Sometimes a Great Notion,” 1971.

“Pocket Money,” 1972.

“The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds,” (director), 1972.

“The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean,” 1972.

“The Mackintosh Man,” 1973.

“The Sting,” 1973.

“The Towering Inferno,” 1974.

“The Drowning Pool,” 1975.

“Silent Movie,” (cameo), 1976.

“Buffalo Bill and the Indians … or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson,” 1976.

“Slap Shot,” 1977.

“Quintet,” 1979.

“When Time Ran Out,” 1980.

“Fort Apache The Bronx,” 1981.

“Absence of Malice,” 1981.

“The Verdict,” 1982.

“Harry and Son,” 1984.

“The Color of Money,” 1986.

“Fat Man and Little Boy,” 1989.

“Mr. & Mrs. Bridge,” 1990.

“The Hudsucker Proxy,” 1994.

“Nobody’s Fool,” 1994.

“Twilight,” 1998.

“Message in a Bottle,” 1999.

“Where the Money Is,” 2000.

“Road to Perdition,” 2002.

“Our Town,” 2003.

“Empire Falls,” 2005.

“Cars,” (voice) 2006.

Britney Spears is craving more freedom — and less of the “control” that’s stabilized her personal life and reinvigorated her career over the last several months.

In an upcoming behind-the-scenes documentary, the 26-year-old pop star says: “If I wasn’t under the restraints that I’m under right now, with all the lawyers and doctors and people analyzing me every day and all that kind of stuff … I’d feel so liberated, and feel like myself.”

The 90-minute film, “Britney: For the Record,” airs Nov. 30 on MTV and the LOGO network. She is shown backstage at the MTV Video Music Awards; recording her new album, “Circus”; dodging the paparazzi; and goofing off with her father, Jamie, who controls her personal and financial affairs.

While her career takes a positive turn, Spears says she’s sad and feels her life is “too in control.”

“There’s no excitement, there’s no passion, there’s no nothing. It’s just like `Groundhog Day’ every day, you know? So I’m really bored,” she says, getting teary.

The mother of two young sons with ex-husband Kevin Federline says she “used to be a cool chick,” but the paparazzi has made it impossible for her to be out and about. In the documentary, which was executive produced by Spears’ manager Larry Rudolph, her security staff discusses hiring a decoy to fool the cameras.

Spears’ turnaround kicked into high gear in September when she nabbed three VMAS, including video of the year. Now on the comeback trail, she has a hit song, “Womanizer,” and is releasing “Circus” next month.

She talks about her two-year downward spiral, which included a divorce, a custody battle, public meltdowns and a sluggish performance at last year’s VMAs, when she barely made it through a dance number of “Gimme More.”

“I’ve been through a lot this year — well, actually the past two or three years,” she says. “And my trust has really been battered. I’ve definitely grown up — big time. And I’m very weary of a lot of things. Very protective of myself.”

She says sometimes she gets lonely.

“You’re guarded,” she says. “You have to be that way, otherwise you get taken advantage of and get in situations like I did the past year. I totally lost my way. I lost focus, I lost myself, I had that type of nature within me that wanted to rebel out.

“I never wanted to become one of those prisoner people — I always wanted to feel free and get in my car and go and not let people make me feel like I have to stay in my home. I think that was always the part of me that kinda got me in trouble,” she says.

Spears dishes on Federline and ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake in the film.

“With Justin, he was a part of the magnitude of what I’d become,” says Spears, who ended a three-year relationship with Timberlake in 2002. “So then when he was gone, I was like, `What am I supposed to do with myself?’ … I would go out just to keep my mind busy, just to keep going.”

While she was devastated over her breakup with Timberlake, she says she handled that better than her separation from Federline in November 2006.

“With Kevin, because I had two children with him, I did not know what to do with myself,” she says. “I had built my dream home in Malibu, a huge house and a pool and a huge yard for the kids and I did everything for them. And just my world was that.”

She says she married Federline for the wrong reasons instead of following her heart. As a result, she went down a “weird path.”

She says her marriage disintegrated when Federline began concentrating on his rap career.

When it ended, “I felt so alone. I didn’t really want to think about the reality of it. It was like, `I’m OK.’ … But I never really faced it, and I just ran,” she says.

China’s mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity remained resilient in 2008 despite the global financial meltdown, making it the best performer in the Asia region, according to information company Thomson Reuters.

M&A activity in the country was at an all-time high of $159.6 billion worth of deals last year, 44 percent more than in 2007, compared with the year-on-year 11.1 percent fall in Asia, excluding Japan, Thomson Reuters said in a report.

“China was the only country in the region to experience growth in such a tumultuous environment, and it’s also the most targeted nation in Asia with a 26.9 percent market share, ” the report pointed out.

“The market’s better performance is mainly due to the fact that the impact of the economic crunch started in the US is delayed when passing down to the domestic transaction activities, and the Beijing Olympics in August helped bolster the strong spirit of the market,” said Xie Tao, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) transactions partner based in Beijing.

Xie added that unlike in other markets, Chinese companies are not in dearth of cash, which is crucial for M&A activity.

The largest transaction of the year was Aluminum Corp of China and Alcoa’s stake purchase in Rio Tinto for $14.3 billion through their Singapore-based joint venture Shining Prospect Pte Ltd.

The country’s inbound activity posted a 34.2 percent year-on-year increase, and made China a global investment haven. Cross-boarder M&A activity rose 51.1 percent from a year ago to $78.4 billion worth of deals in 2008.

“Protection policies to set barriers for cross-boarder M&As have been partly pared when facing the economic meltdown, which helped boost the outbound M&A deals for Chinese companies,” said Xu Wenfei, an analyst at Beijing-based investment research and consulting firm China Venture.

However, transactions were unsurprisingly caught up in the second half of the year when the worst financial woes unfolded in September.

With 543 announced deals between July and November, transaction activity in domestic M&A dropped by a staggering 47 percent compared to the same period in 2007, although it followed a strong growth in the first half to reach 920 announced transactions, according to PwC’s report.

“Activity levels dropped dramatically in the second half, largely as a result of regulatory policies to cool the economy in early 2008 amid the fallout from the global economic crisis, and a valuation gap arising from the unwillingness of domestic sellers to meet lower bids for buyers also contributed to the drop,” Xie pointed out.

Looking to 2009, Xie predicts that overall M&A activity in China will remain slow in the first half of the year, but will pick up in the second half as pricing expectations align.

“We expect domestic M&A activity to recover quicker than other regions of the world mainly due to the government’s 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus package, and regulators having room to lower interest rates. Private equity deals may be the first to recover,” said Christopher Chan, PwC’s transactions partner.

Anja Puggl gifted Austria the second gold of snowboard competitions here on Monday as the Euro Cup winner raced to a convincing victory in the parallel giant slalom final at the Harbin Winter Universiade.

The 22-year-old Austrian, who was last season’s Euro Cup winner in Switzerland, managed to shrug aside a series of duels’ challenge in her heat, quarter-final and semi-final, surpassing Japan’s Shohko Miyatake to blitze down the 160-meter vertical drop course first to clinch the gold.

It was also Austria’s second snowboarding gold at the Universiade after Andreas Lausegger’s victory in boarder cross on last Saturday.

“It was so cool and pretty good today. Beautiful weather, beautiful race and beautiful slope, what else could I want?” said the beaming winner after the race, also hoping the victory could be a turning point of her not so good performance in this season.

In the third-place play-offs, Polish Karolina Sztokfisz beat Anja’s teammate Andrea Minarik to grab the bronze after a two-round race.

The six-day snowboard competitions at Universiade will stage men’s and women’s half-pipe and big air in the following three days, with medals already distributed for two disciplines.

The central bank governor’s idea of replacing the US dollar with a super-sovereign reserve currency may take decades to realize, even if it is possible, economists said.

Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, said in an article that it was necessary to create a reserve currency “that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies”.

Zhou suggested that the Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) could be used as a super-sovereign reserve currency. His comments echoed Russia’s latest proposal for the creation of a new reserve currency issued by international financial institutions.

Russia said the idea would be supported by fellow BRIC nations - Brazil, India and China - as well as South Korea and South Africa.

The IMF created the SDRs in 1969 to support the Bretton Woods’ fixed exchange rate system. Its value is based on a basket of international currencies made up of the dollar, euro, Japanese yen and British pound.

“It is necessary to end the dollar’s dominant status with a super-sovereign reserve currency, especially since its future looks much more unstable,” said Zhang Xiaojing, an economist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “But it would take years or decades to work out the details and gain acceptance for its use.”

Zhou said “a super-sovereign reserve currency would not only eliminate the inherent risks of credit-based sovereign currency, but also makes it possible to manage global liquidity.”

Analysts said the US government’s recent bailout efforts, which would lead to massive money creation, is likely to fan inflation. More importantly, it may put greater pressure on the US dollar to depreciate, which would bring significant losses to its holders.

China now has $1.95 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, the largest in the world, and analysts estimate that US dollar denominated assets, including US Treasuries and bonds, account for about 70 percent of those reserves.

Earlier this month, Premier Wen Jiabao said he was worried about the safety of China’s assets in the US. Some analysts said China would reduce its holdings of US Treasury notes gradually.

“The idea of a super-sovereign reserve currency is unlikely to win over most countries in the short run,” said Cao Yuanzheng, chief economist with Bank of China International Holdings Limited. “The idea of using SDR as a reserve currency has been there for 30 years but it is still only on paper.”

Analysts said the idea would face resistance from the US, which relied on the dollar’s dominating status to maintain both the budget and trade deficits.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Monday the US dollar’s position as a key reserve currency was not at risk, despite China’s call for an overhaul of the global monetary system, according to Reuters.

Despite the gloom, the sweet mood of spring is reflected in airy dresses in soft shades ?with bouquets of flowers, botanical motifs, butterflies and a vibrant display of nature in the spring/summer collections of Kenzo and Emporio Armani.

The Kenzo boutique in the basement of Plaza 66 features the striking black-and-white deco style of its Milan concept store to bring out the bright, colorful shades of the clothes. Floral sculptures on the walls create a sweet, romantic atmosphere.

“A delicate, almost evanescent line, interwoven with veils and transparency is how designer Antonio Marras described the house’s newest collection. Inspired by “Alice in Wonderland, it is light and warm, in mossy, powdered colors, reflecting the sunlight of a late summer afternoon,

Fringing, folded Chinese crepe, frilled chiffon, linen and tulle illustrate the aerial slide of the young girl into her wonderland.

There is also an extravaganza of embroideries, organza petals, pearls, ribbons and sequins ?so beautiful and lovely that no woman could say no.

Another fairy tale, “A Thousand and One Nights, has inspired the men’s collection for which the designer has used abundant bright colors and printed patterns matched with exotic accessories to evoke the image of a young Arabian prince.

In comparison, Emporio Armani’s men are more solid and cool.

Its latest collection comes in a palette of pale shades ranging from stormy hues of gray to dark variations of navy blue, with the plain austerity of uniforms.

The silhouette is more streamlined and dynamic, featuring typical wide trousers, narrow at the hem, and deconstructed T shirts and jackets.

For women, the spirit is more carefree and the Armani code of aesthetics is apparent.

The jacket is short and slight with emphasis on the shoulders; they are matched with softly cut trousers to the knee or ankle, created in a fluid shape.

Sleeveless knit tops with light organza backs, long skirts in weightless gauze and gowns covered in beads gliding over the figure like drops of water are, however, dreamy and romantic.

The 380-square-meter Emporio Armani classical store on the second floor of Plaza 66 sells a complete range of high-end men and women’s wear, leather accessories, jewelry, watches and sunglasses.

Beijing police Wednesday set fire to 393.5 kg of illegal drugs to mark the 170th anniversary of the famous Humen Opium Destruction.

A majority of the banned substances destroyed included heroin, methamphetamine (ice), cocaine and marijuana.

Shi Dawei, the political commissar of the capital’s anti-drug committee, said the police Wednesday destroyed “only about half of the drugs they seized” between 2006 and 2008.

“The police seized more than773 kgof drugs over the three-year period,” he said.

On June 3, 1839, Lin Zexu, a senior official of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), ordered that 1,000 tons of smuggled opium, confiscated from foreign dealers in China, be set on fire in Humen,Guangdong province.

The mass opium destruction is known as China’s first battle against drugs.

A new memorial hall dedicated to Lin Zexu was also opened to the public in Fuzhou Wednesday.

Beijing police, armed with machine guns, escorted the bulletproof vehicles loaded with drugs to a northwestern suburban area, where the banned substances were thrown into an industrial furnace Wednesday.

Between 2006 and 2008, Beijing’s drug enforcement agents uncovered more than 13,860 cases of drug trafficking and captured more than 16,600 suspected dealers, according to the Beijing public security bureau.

China handled about 62,000 cases related to drug trafficking over the past year and arrested some 74,000 suspects across the country, the bureau said.

In the past year, the country’s police seized 4.4 tons of heroin, 6.2 tons of “ice”, 1 million “ecstasy” pills, 5.3 tons of ketamine, 2.2 tons of marijuana, 1.4 tons of opium and almost a ton of cocaine.

“In recent years, international drug traffickers have found new ways to smuggle drugs into Beijing. Sending drugs across borders via air-mail is the latest trick up their sleeves,” Liu Shaowu, deputy director of Beijing anti-drug committee, told China Daily.

“During the Beijing Olympics, 11 foreign smugglers were arrested with 10.9 kg of drugs.”

Liu said: “Three underground drug markets inBeijinghave been completely destroyed, and crackdowns on drug dealers will remain one of the bureau’s top priorities in the coming years.”

Addicts on rise in Shanghai

The number of drug addicts in Shanghai is on the rise, local authorities revealed Wednesday.

Ever since the Anti-Drug Law came into effect on June 1 last year,Shanghai has been trying to educate people about the harmful affects of drugs, crackdown on drugs and treat addicts.

With some 32,000 drug addicts — 0.15 percent of Shanghai’s total population — the city’s illegal substance users have been growing by 20 percent annually, said Zhou Weihang, director of the Shanghai’s anti-drug office.

In 2006, the annual growth was reported at 17 percent, he said.

“Shanghai has become a relay center for drug trafficking as well as a destination where consumption is soaring,” Zhou said.

Since 2006, more and more drug users are taking to synthetic substances like ice, ecstasy and ketamine.

“Eighty percent of the new addicts use synthetic drugs and 75 percent of the synthetic drug users are below the age of 35,” Zhou said.

“Most people think synthetic drugs are not addictive and it is cool to use them.

“Synthetic drugs are more psychologically addictive than physically and carry the potential to damage a nervous system irreversibly,” he said.

People who use an Amphetamine drug called “head-shaking pills” go on spinning their heads for hours and are totally exhausted afterwards. And people who use ice’ have illusions, Zhou said.

In suburban Jiading district, a man stabbed his bride on their wedding night. It was later discovered he had a “history of ice addiction” and had even stabbed his ex-wife, who left him thereafter.

Among the 623 cases Shanghai police cracked in the first five months of this year, 34 involved more than 1,000 grams of drugs, said Zhou.

On May 8, police shot dead a suspect during a drug raid, before arresting four suspects, armed with guns, holding 2 kg of ice.

Statistics show that in 2008, a total of 264,000 drug addicts were separated for compulsory addiction treatment while 238,000 accepted community treatment help.

The global recession may have lowered tourism numbers in many vacation spots, but at Grouse Mountain resort in North Vancouver, British Columbia, things are looking up, both literally and figuratively.

Attendance at the 82-year-old ski and recreation destination has remained lofty, increasing to 1.2 million in 2008 compared with 1.1 million the previous year, according to William Mbaho, the resort’s public relations and communications manager. “Snow enthusiasm is not waning,” he says, adding that so far in 2009 there has also been an increase in the number of students at the resort’s ski and snowboarding schools.

But visitation isn’t the only thing on the rise at Grouse Mountain. The SkyRide, North America’s largest aerial tram system, “takes visitors a mile up the mountain to our alpine station, 3,700 feet above sea level,” says Mbaho. “From there you have breathtaking panoramic views of the city, sea, and surrounding mountains.”

The peaks and valleys of attendance at Canada’s other big tourist draws were somewhat less dramatic than the view from Grouse’s summit. The ’09 update to the list of most-visited Canadian tourist attractions shows modest increases or decreases at destinations where new figures were available. Visitation to Ottowa’s Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Toronto Zoo jumped to 1.3 million last year at both venues, for example, up from approximately 1.2 million for both the previous year. But at the Ontario Science Center, attendance fell from 1.2 million to about 990,000—still enough to squeeze onto the low end of our list, though.

As our list reveals, the tourism hot-spots in Canada’s 3.5 million square miles include the quaint (the narrow, restaurant-lined streets of Quebec City’s fortified old town, for example), but they also encompass the exotic and awe-inspiring (the thundering falls of Niagara or the stratospheric heights of Toronto’s CN Tower).

Not surprisingly, for a country renowned for its natural beauty, outdoor destinations figure heavily on the list. Canada’s national parks draw approximately 13 million visitors annually. The system’s crown jewel, Banff National Park, in the Canadian Rockies (in the province of Alberta) attracts scores of adventure-seekers and nature lovers.

Ellen Sellers, a representative of Carlson Wagonlit/Encore Travel in Bolingbrook, Ill., describes Banff as “the Switzerland of this hemisphere.” She says U.S. travelers are often surprised to find the area “much different than a park like Yellowstone. Banff is glacial, very green in the summertime. It’s fresh and cool.”

The Bay of Fundy, another Canadian natural wonder, straddling the eastern provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, is also a major tourist draw. Approximately 1.2 million visitors a year come to marvel at the world’s highest tide (the sea rises 50 feet in about six hours) and to take in the myriad natural phenomena, including several species of rare and endangered whales.

“Thirty percent of visitors to Fundy come from the U.S.,” says Bay of Fundy Tourism Partnership manager Terri McCulloch. “Likely this is due, in part, to the excellent high speed catamaran car ferry, ‘The Cat,’ that traverses the coast from Portland and Bar Harbor, Maine, to the town of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy.”

Americans account for the lion’s share of visitors at many of the Canada’s top attractions. Travelers from the U.S. account for more than 76 percent of the 17.8 million foreign overnight visitors to Canada, according to the CTC’s latest annual report (2007).

As Canada’s largest city, Toronto is home to many of its most-visited tourist attractions. Harbourfront Centre, a 10-acre site on the waterfront, includes shops, restaurants, green space, art performance venues, an ice skating rink and an extensive boardwalk. It draws approximately 12 million visitors annually, and this year (2009), its summer arts festivals—including the largest Indigenous art festival in the world, “Planet IndigenUs”—are expected to draw two million alone.

“Toronto is known as one of the world’s most ethnically varied cities,” the CTC’s Carol Horne explains. Some 110 languages and dialects are spoken among the population of 2.5 million.

Looking out from her window in the CTC’s Vancouver office, Horne offers another example of Canada’s thrilling diversity: “I’m looking up at the mountains, and Stanley Park (the forested oasis in the middle of the city) is just down the street. And all this is side by side with some incredible local culinary experiences. You can ski and dine [downtown] all in one day.”

Vancouver is a prime example of what Horne calls Canada’s “vibrant cities on the edge of nature.” In addition to Stanley Park and Grouse Mountain, Vancouver’s Granville Island—an enclave of theaters, restaurants, shops and artists’ studios alongside a renowned public market—makes our list, with an estimated 10.5 million visitors annually.

Before we take a closer look at those sites of urban vibrancy and natural splendor that constitute Canada’s most-visited tourist sites, a word about methodology. We defined tourist attractions in Canada as discrete sites of historical or cultural interest; natural phenomena and landmarks; and delimited (or officially designated) spaces of entertainment and recreation. While some sites are included that have strong commercial components, standalone shopping malls and casinos have been excluded. Otherwise, Toronto’s Eaton Center, which claims one million visitors a week, would top our list.

We’ve used the most up-to-date available numbers from the tourist attractions themselves along with data from reputable media sources, government agencies, and tourism industry newsletters.

So which Canadian attraction welcomes the most visitors each year? Read the slideshow to find out.

Gao Yuping, along with many laid-off workers, perused job postings on the walls of a closed toy factory in Dongguan, China’s major toy export base.

Not satisfied with the wages offered, Gao and his wife decided to end their stint as migrant workers in this city in China’s southern province of Guangdong and go home to Giuzhou Province.

“We may come back next year if the situation improves,” said Gao, 38.

The couple worked for 14 months in a factory of the Smart UnionGroup in Dongguan, with a monthly income of about 4,000 yuan (585 U.S. dollars). However, the Hong Kong-listed toy company abruptly shut down last month, leaving the couple and 6,700 other workers jobless.

TWO-YEAR SLOWDOWN

China is the world’s largest producer and exporter of toys, with Guangdong alone contributing about 70 percent of the overall output.

Dongguan, the province’s leading toy base, had more than 4,000 factories and some 2,000 suppliers at the peak in 2001.

But the boom began to cool down about two years ago.

Rising raw material prices and wages and a stronger Chinese currency raised production costs by 25 percent for most companies, said Li Zhuoming, head of the Guangdong Toy Association.

Large quality recalls by international toy giants, including Mattel Inc., also hurt the industry as Western countries raised standards to ensure safe toy imports.

Huayuan Toy Co. Ltd. opened in 1987 with nearly 100 workers in one factory. By 2005, the Hong Kong-invested company had four buildings and more than 1,000 employees.

“But since 2006, growth slowed. We received fewer orders and sometimes our clients were not able to pay,” said Zhong Guanhua, a factory chief.

HARDEST YEAR IN THREE DECADES

The financial meltdown gripping the West made the situation even worse this year. Falling consumption was the fatal blow to Chinese toy makers. Their busy season usually runs from June to October, as big toy companies generally place their Christmas orders months in advance.

“But we haven’t received any new orders since August. Obviously, the demand for toys has been shrinking drastically,” said Zhou Zhiming, board chairman of Shengda Clothes and Toy Corp.

About 20 percent of the small factories in Dongguan closed thisyear, he said.

Jiang Haitao, manager of another small toy plant, said orders for Christmas trees had dropped by 30 percent.

“The toy industry is experiencing the most difficult time sincethe country adopted the reform and opening-up policy in 1978,” said Li.

LOOKING AT THE BRIGHT SIDE

Customs statistics showed that 1,554 toy companies in Guangdongwere still exporting as of the end of September, 3,266 fewer than in 2007.

Many small firms had suspended or quit the business due to higher costs and gloomy market prospects, but their exit allowed large competitors to take a bigger market share, said Li.

For years, more than 90 percent of Guangdong’s factories were making toys and accessories for foreign buyers, said Shi Xiaoguang, chairman of the China Toy Association.

As they saw many companies losing foreign buyers amid the financial crisis, big toy makers turned to technical innovation for sustainable growth and profits.

Longchang Toy Co. Ltd. has never worried about sales of their toy robots, which can perform more than 200 actions. Orders kept coming for the high-end product, which is sold for 2,000 yuan (292U.S. dollars) each.

Longchang, with more than 8,000 employees, including 300 research staff, invests more than 30 million yuan in technological innovation every year. The company now has more than 300 toy patents, according to manager Liang Lin.

Another choice is to explore new markets.

Each Chinese child spends about 40 yuan a year on toys, but the figures in Asia generally and the world are 13 U.S. dollars and 34U.S. dollars respectively, according to Xiao Senlin, general manager of Hayidai Toys Factory.

“The domestic market might be a reliable support to help us survive,” he said.

Many others are turning to Russia, the Middle East, eastern Europe and some other new markets, where demand appears strong.

Toy exports to Brazil, India and Russia rose 90 percent, 43 percent and 14 percent, respectively, during the first three quarters of the year from the same period last year.

Dongguan is a mature toy production base that can cope with changing fortunes, said Li. “The industry, which withstood the Asian financial crisis and massive recalls, can survive the hard situation this year.”

Effective on Nov. 1, China raised the export tax rebate on toys from 11 percent to 14 percent, which could help exporters.

“So long as there are children, there will be demand for toys, and we will manage to find opportunities for survival,” said Xiao.

A U.S. Army adviser to the Iraqi military command in Baghdad argues in an internal memo that the U.S. should “declare victory and go home” next year, 16 months ahead of schedule.

Col. Timothy R. Reese wrote that the years-long American effort to train, equip and advise Iraqi security forces has reached a point of rapidly diminishing returns, and that Iraqi forces already are good enough to defend the government against the weakened terrorist and insurgent forces that remain.

“The massive partnering efforts of U.S. combat forces with ISF (Iraqi security forces) isn’t yielding benefits commensurate with the effort and is now generating its own opposition,” Reese wrote in a memo early this month to a number of U.S. military officials in Baghdad.

Reese argued for ending the U.S. military mission in Iraq in August 2010. That is the date when President Barack Obama has said all combat troops will have withdrawn but a residual force of 35,000 to 50,000 troops will remain to continue training and advising the Iraqi security forces until a final pullout by December 2011.

There are now 130,000 U.S. forces in Iraq.

On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said after visiting Iraq that conditions have improved so much that it might be possible to accelerate slightly the withdrawal of combat forces this fall. But he did not address the separate question of whether to shrink or eliminate the post-August 2010 residual force.

The rationale for leaving a fairly large residual force beyond August 2010 rests on an expectation that the Iraqi government will require continued American military assistance even after the combat mission ends.

U.S. commanders say security gains are fragile and reversible, and the Iraqi government needs years of assistance in developing a force capable of defending against external security threats.

“We will retain a transitional force to carry out three distinct functions,” Obama said Feb. 27 in explaining the post-2010 mission. The residual force will be there to train and advise Iraqi forces, Obama said, “as long as they remain non-sectarian.” It also will conduct counter-terrorism missions and protect U.S. civilians.

There has been little public debate in the United States in recent months about the wisdom of leaving as many as 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq after August 2010. Much of the focus has been on whether the pullout of U.S. combat forces over the coming year will leave a security void to be exploited by insurgent groups.

In a study released Thursday, the RAND Corp., a nonprofit research group that performs analyses for Congress, concluded that the biggest risk to stability is that an Iraqi faction will abandon the peaceful political process that has developed over the past two years.

“U.S. withdrawal of combat units could make this more likely insofar as opposition groups see greater opportunity or need to resort to force,” the study said.

The Reese memo was circulated this week to military officials, experts and journalists on an Internet distribution list. U.S. officers in Baghdad verified its authenticity.

Reese previously served as director of the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Last summer he co-authored an official Army history of the war from May 2003 to January 2005.

Retired Army Col. Peter Mansoor, who taught with Reese at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in the 1990s and served with him at Fort Leavenworth in 2006, said in an interview Thursday that he is not convinced the Iraqis will not need or want U.S. forces to perform an extended advisory role.

“A lot of what this Iraqi government is doing is for internal consumption to solidify its nationalist credentials going into the national elections in January,” Mansoor said. “Once those elections are over and a government is in place they may look at their situation differently and realize that a longer-term relationship with the United States — to include a military relationship — is in their interests.”

Reese wrote his memo shortly after U.S. combat forces moved out of Iraqi cities in accordance with a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement and shortly after Vice President Joe Biden visited Baghdad over the July 4 weekend.

Reese mentioned the Biden visit as evidence supporting his argument that the U.S. has accomplished about all it can in Iraq.

“The vice president received a rather cool reception this past weekend and was publicly told that the internal affairs of Iraq are none of the U.S.’s business,” Reese wrote.

Reese cited a growing Iraqi chilliness to U.S. advisers and commanders, unilateral Iraqi restrictions on U.S. forces and a declining Iraqi willingness to conduct combat operations with U.S. troops.

“As the old saying goes, ‘guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days,’” he began his memo. Since the signing of the U.S.-Iraqi security agreement late last year, “we are guests in Iraq, and after six years in Iraq, we now smell bad to the Iraqi nose.”