Monday,  September 10, 2012 • Vol. 13--No. 055 • 38 of 47 •  Other Editions

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with patients' often agitated relatives and friends. The bouncers are polite, yet so tough-looking that people think twice about ignoring their orders.
• "These guys look like they walked right out of an action movie," said Pawan Desai, who brought his 4-year-old daughter to Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital for treatment for a cut on her hand.
• Working in an Indian hospital can be dangerous. In April, a week before DDU hired the bouncers, friends of an emergency-room patient punched a doctor in the face and broke his nose before going on a rampage with hockey sticks, swinging at windows, lights, furniture and medical staff.
• The medical staff at DDU, a government hospital, had faced nearly one attack a month and had gone on strike 20 times over six years demanding better security. Since the hospital replaced its middle-aged, pot-bellied guards with bar bouncers, bodyguards, and wrestlers sporting muscles and tattoos, "there hasn't been a single incident," said Dr. Nitin Seth, the doctor who was injured in April.
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Where is China's next leader? Mystery absence of Xi sends rumor millions into frenzy

• BEIJING (AP) -- Where is President-in-waiting Xi Jinping?
• Is he nursing a bad back after pulling a muscle in a pick-up soccer game (or maybe in the swimming pool)? Has he been convalescing after narrowly escaping a revenge killing by supporters of ousted Communist Party boss Bo Xilai? Was he in a

car accident? Or just really busy getting ready to lead the world's no. 2 economy ahead of the expected leadership transition next month?
• Chinese micro-bloggers and overseas websites have come up with all kinds of creative speculation as to why the current vice president has gone unseen for more than a week. During that span, Xi canceled meetings with visiting foreign dignitaries including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Monday, it was the Danish prime minister's turn.
• Xi's whereabouts during this sudden absence from the spotlight may never be known. One thing, however, is certain: China may now be a linchpin of the global economy and a force in international diplomacy, but the lives of its leaders remain an utter mystery to its 1.3 billion people, its politics an unfathomable black hole.
• So when the presumptive head of that opaque leadership disappears from public view, rumor mills naturally go into frenzy.
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