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Ancient Chinese people used a dozen animals to symbolize the 12 Earthly Branches. They are the rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. When the cycle of 12 years is completed, a new round begins.

As is true of almost anything ancient, the origin of the Chinese Zodiac animal signs is a mix of legend and folklore.

It is said that, at the dawn of civilization, the Emperor of Heaven summoned all animals to compete for 12 representatives of the Earthly Branches. The rat and the cat, a pair of good friends, planned to go together the next morning. Since the cat was an insatiable sleeper, the rat promised to wake him up. Yet the rat broke his promise. He rose early and went to see the Emperor of Heaven alone. Arriving at the heavenly court, the rat found a queue of 11 other animals, with the ox in the lead. Without hesitation, the rat jumped the queue and took position on the ox's back. When the Emperor of Heaven appeared, he slipped from the ox's back and stole pole position. Such treacherous success aroused public indignation, so from that moment on the wily rat has been forced to live murky underground corners. And, of course, it must endure much grief from the cat.

Despite idioms based on the perceived characteristics of some animals — including "short-sighted as a rat", "lazy as a pig" and "narrow-minded as a chick"— they all receive considerable respect in the years they rule. People born in the Year of Snake are considered rich in wisdom and charm. Usually they are romantic, deep thinking, and are usually strongly guided by their intuition.

The rising jobless rate is the grim side of China's employment situation. Even though the unemployment rate in developed countries is sometimes much higher than 3 percent, their absolute jobless population is much less than that in China, for the same 3 percent means more than 5 million jobless workers in China. Moreover, this is only the registered figure. In fact, there is a large group of recessive unemployed workers.

Another fact adding to the gravity of the situation is that since 1993 the number of China's laid-off workers has been increasing each year.

By September 1998, laid-off workers had numbered 10.7 million, among whom 7.15 million were made redundant from State enterprises, accounting for 66.8 percent of the total. Only about half had found new jobs. .

In 1998, another 12 million people joined the labor force. Together with 3.5 million newly laid-off workers, the 200, 000 demobilized service personnel and redundant government staff, and 12.9 million unemployed workers left over from the previous year, combined to create a surplus labor force of 28.6 million competing for a shrinking number of job vacancies. This means more trouble in 1999.

The headache, in fact, will last for another 20 years, demographers predict. The increase of the population aged between 15-59 will slow down till 2020. The number of this age group will hit 820 million by 2000, 920 million by 2010, and 940 million by 2020. Thus, in the next 20 years, China will have to create job opportunities for both existing jobless and laid-off workers and another 120 million young people coming into the labor force for the first time.

With Western holidays becoming more popular in Chinese cities, flower shops are bustling with activity with the arrival of Valentine's Day.

The annual holiday is known as the day when sweethearts ex-press their affection through exchanging gifts such as flowers and chocolate.

The owner of a small flower shop near the University of Inter-national Business and Economics in Beijing, said the price for a single rose, the typical gift for the holiday, will cost anywhere from 10 yuan (US $ 1.20) to 50 yuan (US $ 6) each in her store. The usual charge in winter is about 8 yuan (US $ 0.96) per flower.

She said she had purchased flowers worth nearly 8,000 yuan (US $964) especially for Valentine' s Day, an amount about 10 times what she normally has on stock. She expected her sales today to reach at least 10,000 yuan (US $ 1,200).

Beijing's larger flower markets also experience great prosperity on this romantic day.

A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?" Hands started going up.

He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this."

He proceeded to crumple up the $20 bill.

He then asked, "Who still wants it?"

Still the hands were up in the air.

Well, he replied, "What if I do this?"

And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind

it into the floor with his shoe.

He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty.

"Now, who still wants it?"

Still the hands went into the air.

"My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to those who do love you. The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know, but by who we are and whose we are. You are special — Don't ever forget it."

If you do not pass this on, you may never know the lives it touches, the hurling hearts it speaks to, or the hope that it can bring. Count your blessings, not your problems. And remember: amateurs built the ark professionals built the Titanic. If God brings you to it — He will bring you through it.

Mr Adamson enjoys playing the violin in his leisure time. He is "often carried away by his music. But it is a terrible time for his neighbors when Mr Adamson plays as he does so badly.

One day Mr Adamson sat by a window and began to play the violin as usual. Mr Adamson seems to be making noises instead of music. However, Mr Adamson was absorbed. Just then, some stones were thrown out of the window under which Mr Adamson was sitting, but he did not pay attention to it. The "music'', continued. After a little while an empty bottle and a worn-out, shoe were thrown out of .the window too. Mr Adam-son knew that this was .not the place for him. The neighbors did not like his "music". Mr Adamson was very sad. He was badly hurt;' "Perhaps no living people can understand my music. I should go to a place where people may appreciate" my works. ' So he decided to go to a graveyard.

He came to a graveyard where there was no other sound except the church toll. The yard was a Heaven14 where dead people rest. Mr Adamson sat at a grave and thought a lot, "I must do my best to show that my music is outstanding." He was inspired and began to play his violin. Suddenly a barefoot stretched out from the grave" and gave Mr Adamson a kick" which sent him flying19. His treasured violin20 also dropped from his hand. Mr Adamson felt very sad because his works was not accepted by anyone, not even the dead.

The next day at first light the buses arrived at the soccer stadium. Families huddled together, mothers fussing about their children , rechecking the contents of little rucksacks , all the time looking to the mountains where Serb gunners were watching.

Soon willing hands took 200 tearful children from tearful mothers and guided them to their seats. The mothers kissed the window that separated them, knowing that to love their children they had to lose them. (Mine had once done the same, as countless others did to save their sons and daughters from Hitler's blitz, sending me off to a family I had never met, in a place I had never heard of. )

The children cried as we pulled out of the stadium. But at the back of my bus a little girl sat watching, without tears. Unlike the others, Natasha knew where she was going.

Our escorts of armored cars flying U. N. flags left us at the first Croatian roadblock 15 miles from Sarajevo. There was intensive fighting along the main road to the coast, so the convoy navigated through the maze of mountain tracks, some hardly wider than the truck wheels, with a sheer drop thousands of feet to the valley be¬low.

Throughout, I kept watch on Natasha. Her escape was our secret, and she was enjoying the intrigue. Every so often, when no one was looking, she gave me silent signals. I slipped her a box of chocolate, which, to my pleasure, she broke into many pieces and shared with the others.

It was dawn the next day by the time we reached the valley floor. The sun was bright when the buses stopped and the children ran out to play in the fields.

Late that night, after we reached the Croatian coastal city of Split, I telephoned my wife, Diana, in England. "Do you remember," I began, "when I was in Saigon and those orphan babies were being flown out? You said we should give some poor child a chance. " There were sleepy mumbles.

"Well, I've just brought one out of Sarajevo. A Bosnian girl. She's nine. She's an orphan, and she's great. You'll love her. " Diana did not sleep any more that night.

The next day Natasha and I left the bus convoy and drove from Split to Zagreb, arriving, a little before midnight. The next morning would be our last, most difficult hurdle. At 11 a. m. Croatia Airlines flight 490 would take off for London with both of us on it.

It is a good thing my aunt Harriet died years ago. If she were alive today she would not be able to air her views on her favorite topic of conversation: domestic servants. Aunt Harriet lived in that leisurely age when servants were employed to do housework. She had a huge, rambling country house called 'The Gables'. She was sentimentally attached to this house, for even though it was far too big for her needs, she persisted in living there long after her husband's death. Before she grew old, Aunt Harriet used to entertain lavishly. I often visited The C when I was a boy. No matter how many guests were present, the great house was always immaculate parquet floors shone like mirrors; highly polished silver was displayed in gleaming glass cabinets;  uncle's huge collection of books was kept miraculously free from dust. Aunt Harriet presided over an in\ army of servants that continuously scrubbed, cleaned, and polished. She always referred to them a shifting population', for they came and went with such frequency that I never even got a chance to learn names! Though my aunt pursued what was, in those days, an enlightened policy, in that

domestic staff to work more than eight hours a day, she was extremely difficult to please. While she al criticized the fickleness of human nature, she carried on an unrelenting search for the ideal servant to the of her days, even after she had been sadly disillusioned by Bessie.

Bessie worked for Aunt Harriet for three years. During that time she so gained my aunt's confident that she was put in charge of the domestic staff. Aunt Harriet could not find words to praise Bessie's seriousness and efficiency. In addition to all her other qualifications, Bessie was an expert cook. She acted role of the perfect servant for three years before Aunt Harriet discovered her 'little weakness'. After  absent from The Gables for a week, my aunt unexpectedly returned one afternoon with a party of guests instructed Bessie to prepare dinner. Not only was the meal well below the usual standard, but Bessie see unable to walk steadily. She bumped into the furniture and kept mumbling about the guests. When she in with the last course — a huge pudding — she tripped on the carpet and the pudding went flying the air, narrowly missed my aunt, and crashed on the dining table with considerable force. Though caused great mirth among the guests, Aunt Harriet was horrified. She reluctantly came to the conclusion Bessie was drunk. The guests had, of course, realized this from the moment Bessie opened the door for and, long before the final catastrophe, had had a difficult time trying to conceal their amusement.

Girl was dismissed instantly. After her departure, Aunt Harriet discovered that there were piles of en wine bottles of all shapes and sizes neatly stacked in what had once been Bessie's wardrobe. They mysteriously found their way there from the wine cellar!

People's images of the cowboy don't quite fit the reality. For example, people often think of all cowboys as white Americans. Actually the first cowboys were Mexican; many cowboy customs began in Mexico. There were also black cowboys — often ex-slaves freed by the Civil War — and Indian cowboys. People also forget that the cowboy's main job was to take care of cows and to get them to market. The cowboy's life, although full of adventure, was hard and often boring.

In the mid-1860s, Texas cattle ranchers found that in other states, like Kansas, they could get times as much money for their cattle. This is how cattle drives got started. On the drives, cowboys took the cattle along trails from Texas up to Kansas and even further north.

The cattle of different owners grazed together in open grasslands. They were branded or marked with their owner's symbol. When it was time for the drive, the cowboys would round up the cattle that had the right brand. Brands were also meant to discourage rustlers, or cattle thieves; cattle owners chose brands that would be hard to change.

On the trail, cowboys worked from before sunup to after sundown. At night they took turns guarding the cattle. One constant danger was the stampede: A change in weather or an unexpected noise was enough to make the cattle run.

The era of the cattle drive — the real era of the cowboy — lasted only for about twenty years. As more land was fenced in, cattle could no longer graze freely. There were also too many cattle. By the late 1880s, some cattle trails were actually crowded! However, the stories and the images of cowboys remain as an important topic for many of American literary and film works.It is very important to the people to remember something that mean for them.

Senior birds have now been seen for the first time behaving like grandparents to help take care of the kids.

The new findings could shed light on how grandparenting — rare in the animal kingdom except in humans — develops.

In a very small number of mammal species other than humans — such as pilot whales and some monkeys — researchers have occasionally seen older adults engage in what might be grandparenting. "Still, this behavior remains largely overlooked outside humans," explained molecular ecologist David Richardson of the University of East Anglia in England.

For more than 10 years, Richardson and his colleagues have investigated the Seychelles warble r\ once one of the world' s rarest birds due to human interference. Conservation efforts have now helped rescue this tropical songbird from the edge of extinction.

The small island the researchers worked on is also the nesting site of half a million seabirds. "The constant rain of bird droppings means that a hat is a must!" Richardson recalled. "In addition, although the island is incredibly beautiful, it can also be full of mosquitoes, especially in the jungle. In some wet years, you would be lucky to get away with 300 to 400 bites a day. Fortunately, there is no human malaria, so it is not life threatening."

Now the researchers find that, as in humans, older adult birds that no longer breed often help their children to rear their young. "This helps the grandparents protect their genetic legacy," Richardson suggested.

Suitable territory for breeding on the islands is limited, so older adults typically stop breeding there. The researchers discovered that roughly two-thirds of such older female Seychelles warblers helped their daughters raise offspring by incubating eggs or feeding nestlings3.

"Because the subordinate females are helping to raise offspring they are related to, they are helping to produce more birds and increasing the spread of their genes," Richardson said. "This has never been seen in birds."

The researchers now want to look into why some females keep breeding and why others seem to lose their breeding rights only to become grandparent helpers.

"Are they being pushed out or are they moving out to allow their daughters to breed? We don' t know whether they are getting pushed out by their male partners or their daughters," Richardson said.

These findings could shed light on the conditions required for grandparenting behavior to evolve. "By having a different system to compare and contrast to the human system, we may better understand what factors drive the evolution of each system," Richardson said.

To find overlooked grandparenting elsewhere in the animal kingdom, Richardson suggested looking at animal societies "where multiple adults help rear offspring and that involve relatively long-lived individuals in relatively gentle environments —- low predation, disease, no harsh climate events". In such situations, adults might live long enough to help raise their descendents.

It is essential that the driver of any vehicle hold an appropriate license. Failure to do so is an offence and will probably invalidate insurance cover. A driver's license must be product at the request of a police officer or, if this is not possible, it must be produced within seven days at a police station nominated by the driver.

Plating testing and prohibition notices

Annual tests

It is an offence to use a vehicle on the road without a valid test certificate where one is required. Clods vehicles with a maw over 3500kg must normally take their initial test before the end of the first anniversary month of their date of registration. After initial testing, vehicles must be tested annually, either by the anniversary of the first examination or the expiry of the test certificate. The testing system is administered by the Vehicle Inspectorate Executive Agency, Berkeley House, Croydon Street, Bristol BS5 ODA tel: (0117) 954 3200.

Department of transport plating

Most goods vehicles and trailers must display a DOT plate in a conspicuous and accessible position. Vehicle plates should be in the cab, trailer plates on the nearside of the vehicle. These plates, required in addition to the manufacturer's plate, show the legal maximum gross and axle weights, the registration/identification number, the chassis/serial number, the year of original registration, the year of manufacture, the make and model, the gross train weight when (he vehicle is constructed or adapted to draw a trailer and the limits set out in the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986, if these are lower. At the time of going to press, proposals were under consideration which would see the manufacturer's plate acting as the legal description of weight for "off the peg" vehicles with the consequent disappearance of the I JOT plate.

There is a detailed list of exemptions from plating and testing, but in general vehicles used to carry goods from A to B are not exempt. Details are available from the Vehicle Inspectorate Executive Agency.

Prohibitions

Prohibition notices may be issued for empty or laden vehicles by authorized police officers and vehicle examiners where the vehicle is found to be unroadworthy. The prohibition bans the use of the vehicle on the road, immediately in the case of significant safety— related defects or after a specified period of time in the case of less serious matters. Prohibitions may be lifted following a full or partial of test of the vehicle. Traffic commissioners may take into account the number of prohibition issued to an operator when considering the future of their operator's license and failure to observe the requirements of a prohibition notice is a serious offence.