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BERLIN German media dubbed European Union leaders’ agreement on a single European banking supervisor hammered out in Brussels overnight a “victory on points” for Angela Merkel, judging she had persuaded peers to proceed at a slower tempo. The 27 leaders agreed to adopt a legal framework by the end of this year giving the European Central Bank overall responsibility for banking supervision, with the new mechanism going into operation during the course of 2013. The French and southern European countries had wanted the new supervisory body to be up and running by January, in part because that would be a [...]

SHANGHAI China’s newest Nobel laureate, novelist Mo Yan, could use his new-found stature to make a subtle difference in the arena of freedom of speech in China, but he is more likely to keep his head down and avoid politics, his translator said on Friday. The 57-year-old Chinese author, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday, has achieved his success by working within a system with distinct boundaries, not ignoring them, said Howard Goldblatt, who has translated several of Mo’s works into English, including the acclaimed “Red Sorghum”. The book was later the basis for a film [...]

Winning naturally elevates testosterone levels, but so does striking the type of expansive pose adopted by Great Britain’s Chris Hoy upon winning gold in the men’s keirin cycling. “Power poses” are characterised by outstretched limbs, something at which gymnast Gabby Douglas would likely excel … The effects of a “power pose,” as demonstrated by Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, are thought to last at least 20 minutes, and help combat cortisol, the stress hormone. Some power poses appear to be gender specific. A University of Jena psychologist has demonstrated that men associate a clenched fist with feelings of power. Researchers have [...]