The most famous of them are:

1. Kauai, Hawaii, U.S.

As the fourth largest of Hawaiian Islands, Kauai is one of the moistest areas on earth. Most of this mountainous island is bemisted. These lush and mossy forests are home to the colorful Hawaiian honeycreeper, an endangered bird species. Even the tiny fluctuation will cause large-scaled partial changes on the island, which put the islands’ distinct ecosystem under severe stress.

2. Caribbean Sea

Four types of endangered sea turtles habit among the coral reefs in the Caribbean Sea. Rising of sea level and temperature of sea water, acidification of the oceans and extreme storms all can destroy the beach where the female sea turtles lay eggs and also threaten the coral reefs that turtles live on. Due to the temperature’s influence on the gender of turtles, scientists worry about the decline in male turtles, which could threaten the survival of the species.

3. Recife, Brazil

Recife in northeastern Brazil is a business center and also a prime destination of tourists, who visit here for the pleasant weather and white beaches. Same as Rio De Janeiro and Argentine Buenos Aires, due to its dense coastal development, now Recife is highly vulnerable to the threats of rising sea levels, hurricanes and storm surges. The degeneration of coral reefs also exposes the whole city to flooding.

4. Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

Since it was founded in the 1830s on the shore of Lake Michigan, the “Wind City” Chicago has become the center of transportation, industry, finance and entertainment in the Midwest of U.S. Nowadays, more than 9.5 million permanent residents live in the metro area, making it the third third-most-populous city in the U.S. In the coming years, Chicago will suffer from gradual increase in heat waves and flooding.

5. Quelccaya Ice Cap, Peru

It is the awesome scene: massive ice fields and blue-white glaciers span about 70 square kilometers of the Cordillera Oriental mountain range. As the largest body of ice in the tropics, Quelccaya Ice Cap provides water to the streams and river flowing in the valley below. Since 1978, Quelccaya Ice Cap has already lost 20 percent of its surface area and could totally disappear till the end o this century.

6. Rio de la Plata, Uruguay

Fresh water from the Paran and Uruguay rivers collides with sea water from the South Atlantic Ocean in the muddy estuary of Rio de la Plata. This estuary feeds surrounding rich and fertile land, also provides the natural habitant for variety of endangered species, such as the rare La Plata dolphin. Climate changes may lead to flooding of the coastal area.

7. Charlevoix, Quebec, Canada

Dominated by conifers and broad-leaved trees such as birch, aspen, rowan, and poplar, Quebec’s Charlevoix region is a breeding ground for more than 200 bird species and paradise to caribou, lynx, black bear, moose, coyote, timber wolf, wood bison, grizzly bear, beaver, and other mammals. Rising of global temperature in the future will threaten the boreal forests and diversified wildlife in Canada.

8. Western Hudson Bay, Canada

For most of the year, the polar bears wander around the frozen Hudson Bay and feed on seals. In the western area of Hudson Bay, snow will start to melt in late spring. At that time, polar bears will go into hibernation, living off self-reserved fat, until the sea freezes again. But now the melting time in this area advances almost three weeks than it did in the early 1970s, limiting the endangered bears’ access to food.

9. Mississippi River Delta, U.S.

Insurgent Mississippi River flows from north to south through the vast subtropical landscape of rivers, marshes, and low-lying barrier islands, finally into Mexico Bay. At the rim of Mississippi River Delta, the Chandeleur Islands form a natural buffer zone for the heavily populated coastal regions of Louisiana, which include New Orleans, against increasingly stormy seas.

10. Trinidad, Cuba

The town of Trinidad is renowned for its well-preserved Spanish colonial architectures. It has been declared as the World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Including Trinidad, the whole Cuba lies in the path of hurricanes, which always threaten the safety of local residents and colonial architectures. Now the Cubans are making efforts on reinforce buildings against more severe storms.

Oregon has the nation’s lowest rate of hefty kids, according to a new government study, which found big gaps between regions and ballooning obesity rates in many states from 2003 to 2007.

More than 16 percent of American children ages 10 to 17 years were not just overweight, but obese, in 2007. That’s a 10 percent rise from 2003. Mississippi topped the nation with more than a fifth of its kids obese.

Oregon was the star, with the lowest rate of obesity — defined as body mass index in the 95th percentile or above — at just under 10 percent. And Oregon was the only state whose childhood obesity fell significantly from 2003 to 2007.

Even the best states fell short. The federal Healthy People 2010 initiative set a childhood obesity goal of 5 percent. Only Wyoming girls came close to that, according to the study appearing in May’s Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

“You’ve got such wide differences at the geographic level, which means there is potential to further reduce obesity,” said lead author Gopal Singh, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration.

What works? It’s unclear how much states can overcome the effects of poverty, race and family history — all of which have complex links to obesity.

Black and Hispanic young people in the study were twice as likely as whites to be overweight or obese, even when the researchers took into account other risk factors like inactivity and poverty.

Oregon is 90 percent white. It also has a high rate of breast-feeding, and some research suggests that protects against obesity.

Oregon law sets nutrition standards in schools and requires chain restaurants to provide nutritional information on request. Those steps, taken recently, wouldn’t have shown up in the new study’s results, but may reflect Oregon’s inherent interest in health.

The figures for this analysis came from a representative telephone survey of parents who gave information about their children. Figures for about 47,000 children were analyzed for 2003 and about 44,000 children for 2007. That’s not as accurate as a government survey that weighs and measures children. Data from that suggest childhood obesity rates nationwide may be starting to stabilize.

In a separate paper based on the same data, Singh found that a child living in a neighborhood with unsafe surroundings, poor housing and no access to sidewalks, parks and recreation centers had 20 to 60 percent higher odds of being obese or overweight.

Experts blame the rise in childhood obesity on fast food, neighborhoods without sidewalks, television, video games, schools neglecting physical education and a host of other societal changes, said Dr. Joe Thompson, director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity.

Now, lawmakers must move the obesity numbers in the right direction to save future medical costs, if for no other reason, Thompson said.

“Life is filled with harmony. I like harmony in life, in my work, in my architecture, and in the materials I choose,” Valentiny told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.

The Luxembourg Pavilion, built from steel, wood and glass, is an open fortress around with plants. The idea “forest and fortress” comes from the literal meaning of the Chinese term for Luxembourg.

The pavilion’s 15-meter-high main structure resembles an ancient castle with large openings surrounded by medieval towers.

“I want to create something authentic of Luxembourg culture, so I chose a traditional type of a Luxembourg single-family house for the pavilion outline,” he said.

The pavilion boasts a plant flower wall conveying the image of a forest with a tower surrounded by greenery. To the architect, visitors coming to this pavilion can enjoy a mini-Luxembourg.

The “Golden Lady” stature, Luxembourg’s national treasure and symbol of the country’s independence and civility, stands on top of a 3-meter-tall steel column at the entrance of the pavilion.

Glittering under the blistering sun, the stature constitutes a sharp contrast with the rusty-colored pavilion. “This (the contrast) was a combination of the history and modern elements,” Valentiny said.

“For me, Better City and Better Life means a willingness to see and understand different cultures and people from various cultures. That’s important,” he added.

Occupying just a small area in the Expo site, the Luxembourg Pavilion makes full use of the limited space by integrating wisdom and imagination to demonstrate its them of “Small Is Also Beautiful.”

All the building materials of the pavilion are recyclable. By demonstrating the concept of sustainable development, the design represents Luxembourg’s reputation as the “Green Heart of Europe”, he said.

“The steel is very hard, a big contrast with the flowers, water and vegetation,” he said, adding that different elements could be combined together to showcase a spirit of harmony.

The Luxembourg-born architect won the national competition to design the pavilion in August 2007 and started the design since November 2007.

“Luxembourg is beautiful but small, and not so old compared with China. But I love China, the Chinese people, and the food here,” he said.

When Cissy Pao used to walk out of her China Town studio in New York, the parking lot attendant took her to be one of the sewing women from the nearby clothing factory.

She is actually from one of the richest families in Asia, and third daughter of Pao Yue-kong, founder of Hong Kong’s Worldwide Shipping Group, once the world’s largest shipping company.

“I wanted to be adventurous and self-reliant, and didn’t want to take advantage of family relations,” she told China Daily late week, while in Shanghai for the opening of the abstract art exhibition by Li Lei, director of Shanghai Art Museum.

Once an aspiring artist with a degree in art history, Pao has combined her artistic aptitude with business, and revamped more than 10 historic garden villas in Shanghai, turning them into modern residential or commercial entities.

The Leo Gallery, where the exhibition was held, is located on one of her properties. Ferguson Lane was built in the 1930s. Several years ago, Pao passed by the area, fell in love with an old house along the lane, and decided to buy the place. Now it has become an uptown leisure compound in the heart of the former French Concession.

“In the 1970 and 80s, I bought two lofts and refurbished them. After peeling off one layer after another of paint, I found beautiful oak wood in the old framework - you can’t help but be excited by the transformation of an old place,” she recalls of her first successful experience.

Two or three years later Pao sold the lofts for almost triple the price she paid for them.

“More people from Hong Kong have realized the value of antique buildings in Shanghai in recent years, but now it’s difficult to find purchasable houses. Many houses have complicated ownership, and some people are reluctant to give up their old residence,” she says.

“We should invite people to come back and visit the place they sold to us, so that they can see the transformation.”

Refurbishing an antique house is like painting a new artwork on an empty canvas, she says.

“At first you don’t know what to expect, then every now and then you come back and see some improvements at the building site. An old house is like a diamond needing to be polished, or mud to be molded into a sculpture.”

Though she once dreamed of being a professional artist, she has found her position between art and business.

“You can think about the market, but more importantly you need to know about yourself, and know what’s best for you,” she says about some artists who lost themselves in the market boom for contemporary Chinese art.

Back in 1980, when Pao had her first exhibition in New York, she called her father with pride to say that she had sold her first piece.

“My father laughed when he learned that I made about $8,000 from it - he must have thought I was a silly girl to go through so much trouble just for that little amount of money.”

Pao Yue-Kong had four daughters and no son. The four girls were named in alphabetic order: Anna, Bessie, Cissy and Doreen. Anna’s husband inherited the shipping business. All four daughters are actively involved in arts and charity in Hong Kong. Cissy Pao has worked as the chairwoman of the Hong Kong Arts Center for almost seven years, holding fund-raising campaigns and making sure the money is used properly.

As one of the “second-generation rich”, Pao believes it’s important to know the value of things. “It’s okay to pay twice what something’s worth, but it would be stupid to pay 100 times more,” she says.

“It’s a good thing to know how to spend your money. With more money one can have a broader vision and create bigger achievements. My parents were thrifty - my father wore the same wristwatch for 30 years, and my mother used to mend the stockings we threw away and wear them.”

A good calligrapher, Pao Yue-Kong used to give his hand-written couplets to his daughters, which called on them to keep exercising for good health, and work hard and be prudent in their careers. Pao still has the couplet hung in her office.

I gained this enlightening perception of life in a trip last month to a Buddhist monastery in the wooded hills in Hangzhou, a bucolic city just about an hour from Shanghai by bullet train.

My wife and I were taking a leisurely walk and appreciating the scenery, as we often do in Hangzhou, when we chanced upon a lecture on guqin music and Buddhism in the Pathaka Hall of Yongfu Monastery.

It was almost dusk when we found ourselves in this graceful Buddhist music hall, where master Nian Shun happened to be playing guqin, a seven-stringed traditional instrument. The performance was part of a lecture to visiting scholars of Buddhism from Shanghai.

Guqin has a history of more than 3,000 years; there is no comparable instrument in the West (the closest may be a zither). It came into vogue in Confucius’ lifetime (551?479 BC), and has since become a musical carrier of Confucian values for its soft, solemn and soothing tunes. Confucius himself was a great guqin player and composer.

Over time, with increased interaction between Confucian scholars, Buddhist monks and Taoist thinkers, guqin became a favorite of all.

Master Nian Shun played two songs: “Gui Qu Lai Ci” (”Away From the Crowd”) and “Jing Guan Yin” (”Observation in Peace”). The first is about retiring from the hustle and bustle of mundane politics into the quiet of farmland, while the second is about the merits of a tranquil mind.

One of the hardest hit areas was Mississippi’s Yazoo County, where Gov. Haley Barbour grew up. He described “utter obliteration” among the picturesque hills rising abruptly from the flat Mississippi Delta.

More than 15 other counties in Mississippi also had damage. The swath of debris forced rescuers to pick up some of the injured on all-terrain vehicles the west-central part of the state. Tornadoes were also reported in Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama, and the severe weather continued to track eastward.

In Yazoo City, Malcolm Gordon, 63, stood with members of his family peering out at the neighborhood through a broken window.

Above them, the roof was gone, a tree lay across part of the house and power lines stretched across the yard. The smell of shredded pine trees hung in the warm breeze in the neighborhood of modest houses and mobile homes surrounded by hills and ravines.

Gordon and his wife, Diane, hid in a closet while much of the neighborhood was blown away.

“I’ll just bulldoze what’s left and start over,” he said.

It was one of several unlikely survival stories to emerge from the destruction.

Essie Hendrix, manager of Peebles department store in Yazoo City, said she and other employees were inside with about 15 customers when the tornado struck. An assistant manager took the customers to the back of the store, and Hendrix saw the tornado barreling through the parking lot. She huddled between a safe and a sturdy desk to avoid flying glass and debris.

“It was like a rumbling and a roaring and stuff was falling,” Hendrix said. “It sounded like it was going to suck us out of there. It lasted about two minutes, but it felt like it lasted an hour.”

No one in the store was injured.

About 100 yards away, the owner of Ribeye’s Steak House said everyone ran into a walk-in freezer to safety when they saw the tornado.

“The roof was caving in, TVs flying off the shelves and it was horrible,” Mitchell Saxton said. “… We got in the walk-in freezer, sat in there for about ten minutes. When I came out it was really bad. Just thanking the good Lord I’m here and able to talk with you all.”

Saxton’s restaurant was destroyed but no one was hurt.

The severe weather started in Louisiana, just across the state line from Mississippi when a tornado destroyed 12 homes and warehouses at Complex Chemical Co., which makes antifreeze and other automotive fluids, owner Jerry Melton said. A small nitrogen leak was reported but didn’t cause any problems.

The storm system moved east, with the twister hitting nearby Yazoo County, Miss., killing four people. In adjacent Holmes County, another person was killed. A little farther northeast, a tornado hit Choctaw County, where another five victims were reported, including children ages 3 months, 9 and 14.

Authorities in Choctow County were going house-to-house in the areas with the worst damage to check for any injured.

Meteorologists said it was too soon to tell whether a single long-lasting tornado — or multiple shorter ones — caused the death and damage in the different cities.

In Yazoo City, stunned residents stood on a hill overlooking the destruction. A National Guard helicopter sat nearby, and later took the governor on an aerial tour of the town.

“Sad, man,” said 22-year-old Rafael Scott, shaking his head. “It’s really hard to believe it. I heard they found a couple of bodies.”

Three broken crosses stood near a flattened church, and religious materials were scattered among twisted steel, broken wood and furniture. A nearby funeral home was reduced to rubble. In a patch of woods, pieces of tin were twisted high up in the broken trees.

Josh Nicholson, 26, was driving home through the storm with his wife, 1-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter when a power line fell across the road in front their sport utility vehicle.

“There was nowhere we could go,” he said.

Nicholson and his wife took the children out of their car seats and they all huddled in the back of the vehicle. All of the sudden, Nicholson said, the vehicle spun around and a tree clipped part of the truck where the 4-year-old had been sitting. Luckily, nobody was hurt.

“It was scary,” Nicholson said.

Thousands across the state were without electricity, and downed power lines and trees blocked roads. At least four people had been brought by four-wheeler to a triage center at an old discount store parking lot, Yazoo City Mayor McArthur Straughter said as sirens whined in the background.

Jim Pollard, a spokesman for American Medical Response ambulance service, said four patients from Yazoo County were airlifted and some 20 others were taken to hospitals. At least four people were in critical condition.

Houston Astros pitcher Roy Oswalt, who pitched on Friday, was returning to Mississippi after a tornado damaged his parents’ home in Weir, Miss.

Willie M. Horton, 78, said he hunkered down in the hallway of his house in Holmes County, which borders Yazoo. “Everything is down. A lot of trees. Big trees,” Horton said.

He said his sister-in-law’s house nearby was damaged, and a nephew’s mobile home was carried away by the storm.

“My cousin — half his barn is gone,” Horton said.

The weather hampered crews trying to clean up an oil spill after an offshore rig exploded earlier this week off the coast of Louisiana. Several sporting events and festivals also were rescheduled.

Collapsed school buildings were blamed for about 35 percent of the deaths, said Cering Tai, deputy director of the provincial education bureau, at a press briefing.

The rest died outside school, he said.

The 7.1-magnitude quake hit Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture at 7:49 a.m. April 14 before the school day had begun. The death toll had risen to 2,183 with 84 still missing as of 5 p.m. Wednesday.

The quake affected 63 schools, with 22,019 students and teaching staff, where about 37 percent school buildings collapsed, the official said.

However, more than 85 percent of buildings in Gyegu near the epicenter, mostly made of mud-brick and wood, had collapsed.

Many school buildings were cracked, but did not collapse, which allowed many students to evacuate safely, he said.

The government had earmarked funds to renovate dangerous school buildings in Yushu in recent years. In addition, the schools also launched safety campaigns in the wake of the more deadly Wenchuan earthquake in neighboring Sichuan Province in May 2008, he said.

Most schools would resume classes by the end of this month in makeshift classrooms, he said.

She said that “the Greek participation provides a unique opportunity for Greece to highlight the special features and competitive advantages. This opportunity, Greece treating it as another challenge for achieving the national goal of enhancing the openness and competitiveness, attract investment, promote exports, green growth.”

According to the Organization Committee for the Expo under the Greek Economy Ministry, the Greek Pavilion addresses the theme of this year’s Expo “Better City, Better Life” through a human- centered approach. A better city for Greece is one which is planned and built around the personality and aspirations of its citizens. It not only exhibits the everyday life but is also reflects an insatiable thirst for living.

The Greek pavilion offers visitors a chance to experience a ” slice life” from a Greek POLIS through an exhibition that combines sophisticated visuals with entertaining interactive installations.

The Greek pavilion uniqueness is that condenses 24 hours in the life of a Greek city into the 12 hours that the pavilion will be open to the public. For a duration of 6 months, in all the pavilion’s projections, the sun will rise in the sky every morning for the morning visitors and set simultaneously every evening, at exactly the same time as it sets in Shanghai. The show will go on into the night for the night visitors, reproducing a unique 12- hour cycle each day, that will make each visit to the pavilion different and special.

The minister told Xinhua the concept of the Greek Pavilion is based on Greek word POLIS. “We participate in the World Expo in Shanghai with great enthusiasm. The center and focus of the Greek pavilion is POLIS. Polis is an ancient Greek word for “city.” Polis services its citizens. In Greek four words set all. POLIS, POLITIS, POLITIKI and POLITISMOS means City, Citizens, Politics and Civilization. In Greek all have the same word Polis,” said Katseli.

She said the Greek Pavilion shows that “it is a living city, a city that serves its citizens, a city of ancient Greece, a city of modern Greece and a city of world.”

The minister said during the Expo, Greece will held some cultural and economic events there. She wish the visitors to enjoy the sites, agoras, enjoy the open city in Greek way.

“I am confident that the Greek presence at EXPO 2010 will be a good start for introducing appreciable Greece as a tourist destination in China. We have already initiated action to simplify and facilitate the issuance of visas to Chinese citizens,” Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Angela Gkerekou said in her speech at the press conference.

They began Friday evening, and worked through the night in temperatures as low as minus 16 Celsius degrees. After 12 hours of work, the tents were ready to accommodate survivors Saturday morning.

The armed police heated water and gave it to the victims. They also turned wood planks into makeshift stretchers, to tackle a shortage.

The 7.1-magnitude quake, which struck the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu in southern Qinghai Province early on Wednesday, also toppled 15,000 residential buildings and forced 100,000 residents to be relocated, according to the rescue headquarters. Many people are still buried under the debris of collapsed houses in the Gyegu Town near the epicenter, the seat of the Yushu prefecture government and home to 100,000 people. It sits at about 4,000 meters above sea level.

More than 85 percent of houses in Gyegu, mostly made of mud and wood, had collapsed.

“Freezing weather, high altitude and thin air have all made rescue efforts difficult,” said Hou Shike, deputy head of the China International Search and Rescue Team.

Some of the team’s rescuers were already feeling dizzy due to low oxygen level in the air soon after arriving at the Yushu Airport Wednesday night, Hou said.

Roads linking the airport and Gyegu were blocked by landslides triggered by the quake, which hampered rescue missions, he said.

“We have begun searching and rescue operation in Gyegu overnight, and will set up a field hospital today,” he said.

At the Yushu Vocational School, more than 20 bodies have been recovered, but at least 20 others are still buried in the debris.

“Perhaps because of altitude sickness, sniffer dogs did not even work sometimes,” said Chang Zhiqiang, a school official who joined the rescue.

Most of the survivors have to stay in the open area Wednesday night amid freezing weather or sought temporary shelters in buildings that remained unaffected by the tremor. Rescuers have set up more than 40 tents for survivors in Gyegu, but the effort seems far from enough.

Professional rescuers, soldiers, police officers and medical workers have been dispatched to Yushu from across the country, along with tents, cotton-padded clothes, quilts, food, water, medicine, bulldozers, excavators, cranes, generators and other relief supplies.

Donations from governmental agencies, privately-run companies or individuals are also being rushed to the quake-hit region.