Before the newspaper released this year's list, it sent questionnaires to 60 of the listed millionaires to study their attitudes toward faith, marriage, life, career and money, and received 33 answers that it considered valid.

The surveyed millionaires have an average wealth of 2.2 billion yuan (US$275 million) and range in age from 33 to 68. More than half of them have had higher education.

"The millionaires we chose in this survey are either from East China or South China, where private businesses started and have a relatively better environment for private enterprises' development," said Cao Xin, in charge of the project.

The survey also found that a majority of the millionaires love and hate money at the same time.

Seven out of the 33 surveyed even said annoyance is the main thing money has brought them along with social status and a sense of accomplishment.

Sociologists agreed that the results of the survey turned out to be quite believable.

Lu Xueyi, a researcher with Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the millionaires' insecure feelings could be regarded as a reflection of their true thoughts.

It has something to do with society's tendency to hate and envy rich people when the economic and social structure is changing, said Lu, who was quoted by the China News Service.

These millionaires were not private entrepreneurs from the very beginning. More than 75 per cent of them have worked in such places as the government and State-owned enterprises.

Sixteen of them, nearly half of the respondents, are Party members. This percentage is close to that in government, which the surveyors said they were surprised to learn.

Though most of them said their careers are only part of their lives, they tend to value career and wealth most, above marriage and family.

Most of these millionaires said do not believe in any formal religion. Only 10 said they were Buddhists. Half of them said they were tolerant of extramarital affairs in general.

At the end of last year, there were 4.39 million private enterprises and 11.09 million private entrepreneurs on the mainland, according to statistics from the country's industrial and commercial administration. About 2,200 private enterprises have registered capital of more than 100 million yuan (US$12.5 million), the administration said.

On Wednesday, Yahoo Inc.'s shares plummeted $7.04, or 21.8 percent, to close at $25.20 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The downturn surpassed a 20.9 percent downturn in Yahoo's stock in October 2000 after the company warned investors it was about to be hard hit by the dot-com bust.

The wipeout erased about $10.4 billion in shareholder wealth.

At one point, Yahoo's shares sold for as little as $25.04 -- the cheapest since April 2004.

Here's Yahoo's problem as Wall Street sees it: the owner of the Internet's most trafficked Web site keeps raking in more money as advertisers continue to shift their spending online, but it still lags well behind search engine leader Google Inc.

And now it looks like Yahoo won't be closing that gap as soon as management had promised.

"I can sense the frustration of investors," said Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy. "It's discouraging and disheartening, especially because Yahoo didn't really give a good reason for the delay."

Rashtchy is maintaining his "outperform" rating on Yahoo's stock, although he lowered his 12-month target for the shares from $42 to $36.

Other analysts weren't as forgiving. For instance, JP Morgan Securities analyst Imran Khan downgraded Yahoo's stock to "neutral" and expressed doubts whether the company will even be able up to live up to its financial projections for the rest of the year. He also believes Yahoo is destined to fall further behind in its technology race with Google, which will provide an update on its progress Thursday when it is scheduled to release its second-quarter results.

Yahoo's bad news didn't take a big toll on Google, whose shares dipped $4.05, or 1 percent, to close at $399 on the Nasdaq. Google's market value of about $120 billion is now more than three times greater than Yahoo's.

Despite Wednesday's harsh backlash against Yahoo, the company isn't exactly struggling. Second-quarter revenue rose 26 percent to $1.58 billion and, after stripping out windfalls and accounting changes that pushed up last year's results, earnings rose 8 percent to $164 million.

Numbers like that are just one of the reasons market observers like ThinkEquity Partners analyst Stewart Barry view Yahoo's stock as a bargain right now.

Wednesday's sell-off wouldn't have been so severe if Yahoo Chairman Terry Semel and his management team hadn't delayed a much-anticipated change in the company's formula for displaying ad links by one to three months.

Investors have been eagerly awaiting the new ad platform, hoping the improvements would enable Yahoo to do a better job displaying short ads. The clicks on those ads, which typically appear as text on the top and sides of Web pages, are critical because they trigger commissions for Yahoo and its partners.

Google's financial growth during the past two years has outstripped Yahoo's partly because it has developed a better formula for determining which ads to display alongside search results -- an advantage that even Semel concedes.

"We are not monetizing as well and it is costing us a lot of money," Semel said Tuesday in an interview.

Because Google closely guards it technology secrets, its advertising formula remains one of the Internet's great mysteries.

But this much is clear: Google has been far more adept than Yahoo at analyzing what people are entering into a search box or reading on a Web page and then quickly deciphering which ads are most likely to gain attention to possibly garner a revenue-producing click.

Although Yahoo holds an advantage over its rival in serving up visual advertising, search advertising for now is the biggest moneymaking channel, which is why Yahoo has been working on fixing its biggest shortcoming for more than a year under a project code-named "Panama."

In May, Yahoo raised hopes by telling analysts it planned to start rolling out the search advertising changes in the third quarter and complete the process in the fourth quarter.

Yahoo now doesn't expect its new approach to be fully deployed until early next year. Semel said Yahoo didn't want to risk a hiccup as advertisers ramped up their spending for the holiday season.

"We feel terrific about (the new formula) and know the importance of it," Semel said. "There is nothing wrong or nothing we are upset about."

Yahoo still boasts the Internet's largest audience with 402 million unique users. But it has been losing favor among investors as Google has widened its lead in the lucrative search market.

Through June, Google held a 44.7 percent share of the U.S. search engine market, up from 36.9 percent at the same time last year, according to comScore Media Metrix. Yahoo ranked second with a 28.5 percent share, down from 30.4 percent a year ago, comScore said.

The loss of 7 cents per share for the April-June period contrasts with a profit of $946 million, or 47 cents per share, in the second quarter of last year. Revenue fell 6 percent to $41.97 billion from $44.55 billion.

Excluding special items, Ford's second-quarter loss from continuing operations was 3 cents a share. Wall Street had been expecting a profit of 12 cents per share, according to a survey by Thomson Financial.

Its shares fell 6 cents to $6.27 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange, near the lower end of their 52-week range of $6.17 to $11.19.

The company said it had a pretax loss of $797 million in North America, an improvement over last year's $907 million loss in the second quarter. It said the cost reductions were offset by the market's shift away from trucks to lower-margin cars, higher sales incentives and adverse foreign currency exchange rates.

"We've seen an improvement in North America results in the second quarter, but the external factors we face aren't going to get any easier," Bill Ford said in a statement.

Analysts have criticized the company for keeping quiet on its restructuring progress, but Bill Ford said the company will discuss "additional actions" within the next 60 days.

The company took a charge of $171 million, or 6 cents per share, to shed employees at plants it is idling. It also took a related charge of $315 million, or 11 cents per share, due to pension curtailments due to employee buyouts in the second quarter.

But the charges were partially offset by a gain of $148 million, or 8 cents per share, due to a gain that Mazda Motor Corp. took on the transfer of its pension liabilities to the Japanese government. Ford owns about a third of Mazda. Also offsetting the charges was a favorable adjustment of $146 million, or 5 cents per share, to a $1.7 billion charge for layoffs and termination packages in the first quarter, the company said.

For the first half of the year, Ford lost $1.3 billion, or 70 cents a share, in contrast to a profit of $2.16 billion, or $1.05 a share, a year ago. Six-month revenue fell to $83 billion from $89.7 billion a year ago.

"We want to get a snapshot of [residents'] health ... and if we can't prevent the diseases, have early detection of them," said Dr. Juliet VanEenwyk, state epidemiologist for noninfectious diseases.

The Washington Adult Health Survey is sponsored by the state Department of Health and is designed to gather a cross section of state residents. The survey will begin late this month and will take about a year, VanEenwyk said.

Cardiovascular disease - including heart disease and stroke - is of particular interest because it's the leading cause of death, killing about 15,000 state residents a year.

About 1,500 people a year die of diabetes complications, and the number is steadily increasing.

Evidence abounds that many already have the diseases or are at risk. A statewide telephone survey last year found that about a quarter of adults have high blood pressure and more than a third have high cholesterol. And state health authorities estimate about one-fifth of adults are obese.
Information

In this latest survey, selected participants will be asked about their access to health care and whether they have dental problems, osteoporosis, emphysema or cancer. Other questions will center on diet, medications and other risks for disease such as tobacco and alcohol use.

A nurse on each survey team will measure blood pressure, pulse, height, weight and waist size.

A blood sample will be taken to measure cholesterol and blood sugar.

A hair sample, to measure mercury levels, will be taken from women of childbearing age and participants 60 and older.

"We'll ask about fish consumption to see if certain types cause higher levels of mercury," said VanEenwyk.

Surveyors will wear yellow vests and carry photo identification.

Participants will be given a $45 gift card for their help in the survey. Officials are not seeking volunteers; participants are being chosen to represent the diverse population of the state.

The survey is being financed by an $800,000 grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kansas and Arkansas also were awarded survey grants.