（中國‧北京）中國外交部宣佈，總理溫家寶將於12月17日至18日出席在丹麥舉行的哥本哈根氣候峰會。
外交部在週五（12月11日）晚上發表簡短聲明，確認溫家寶將出席哥本哈根氣候大會最後階段的會議，屆時美國總統奧巴馬、印度總理辛格和法國總統薩爾科齊等領導人將齊聚一堂。
據悉，溫家寶將在會議上發表重要講話，全面闡述中國積極應對氣候變化、推動氣候變化國際合作的立場和主張。
此外，溫家寶週五晚應約與聯合國秘書長潘基文通電話，溫家寶表示，中方願與聯合國保持密切溝通，共同為此作出努力。
而潘基文則高度讚賞中國政府在控制溫室氣體排放方面所作的努力和宣佈的行動目標，認為這是對氣候變化國際合作的重大貢獻。
據報導，溫家寶當天較早前到中國氣象局考察時要求，要採取堅決有力措施，實現中國政府提出的減緩溫室氣體排放的行動目標。
（新加坡）美國一項調查顯示，一個人的職業與他的婚姻是否美滿有關，護士、精神科醫生、舞蹈員和藝人，都較有可能離婚！
美國維吉尼亞州的瑞德福大學的心理學教授阿莫特，發明出一套公式可計算出各行各業的離婚率。
他發現在449個職業中，有最高離婚比率的首5個行業包括了必需時常關懷他人的護士及醫生。身處在花花世界的藝人，也是高離婚率的一群。
心理醫生大衛威廉說︰“這項調查令人關注的是，那些從事關懷工作的人也很有可能離婚。這或許是因為他們花太多時間來關懷別人，而犧牲自己的家庭，或是，他們的性格較敏感，所以在處理自己的感情時，也較脆弱。”
總裁善調解離婚機率低
總裁工作時間長，壓力大，但婚姻破裂率僅9.81%。
心理醫生凱羅琳舒斯特相信︰“總裁善於時間分配、調解糾紛、支配工作，並經常有很高的情緒智商，這些都是讓感情成功的重要元素。”
牙醫、驗光師、神職人員、足科醫生和農業工程師的婚姻美滿又長久，只有2%至7%離婚。
哪些行業的人，最可能離婚？
●舞蹈者︰43%
●調酒師︰38%
●按摩師︰38%
●醫療工作者︰29%
●藝人︰28%
（泰國‧曼谷）流亡的泰國前首相塔辛今日（週六，12月12日）在“推特”（Twitter）私人網頁上宣佈，將進行長達一週的訪問亞洲3國行程。
塔辛11月獲委為柬埔寨政府經濟顧問後，曾訪問柬埔寨。柬埔寨總理洪森拒絕將塔辛引渡回泰國，引發柬泰外交風波。
塔辛在推特頁面上指出：“我計劃在7至8天內，訪問亞洲3個國家，與這些國家的領導人交換意見。我已經向這3個國家徵取同意。”他未透露是哪3個國家。
WASHINGTON — The House passed the most ambitious restructuring of federal financial regulations since the New Deal on Friday, aiming to head off any replay of last year's Wall Street failures that plunged the nation deep into recession.
The sprawling legislation would give the government new powers to break up companies that threaten the economy, create a new agency to oversee consumer banking transactions and shine a light into shadow financial markets that have escaped the oversight of regulators.
The vote was a party-line 223-202. No Republicans voted for the bill; 27 Democrats voted against it.
While a victory for the administration, the legislation dilutes some of President Barack Obama's recommendations, carving out exceptions to some of its toughest provisions. The burden now shifts to the Senate, which is not expected to act on its version of a regulatory overhaul until early next year.
The president praised the House action Friday, and called on Congress to act swiftly to get the bill to the White House for his signature.
"The crisis from which we are still recovering was born not only of failure on Wall Street, but also in Washington," Obama said. "We have a responsibility to learn from it and to put in place reforms that will promote sound investment, encourage real competition and innovation and prevent such a crisis from ever happening again. "
The legislation would govern the simplest payday loan and the most complicated high-finance trades. In its breadth, the measure seeks to impose restrictions on every house of finance, from two-teller neighborhood thrifts to huge interconnected conglomerates.
Democratic leaders had to fend off a last-minute attempt to kill a proposed consumer agency, a central element of the legislation and one the features pushed by the White House. The agency would take over consumer protection powers from current banking regulators, and big banks and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce vigorously opposed the idea.
Democrats said the broad legislation would help address problems that led to last year's calamitous financial crisis. Republicans argued that it overreached and would institutionalize bailouts for the financial industry.
"Let's put it to the American people: Do you prefer the Republican position of doing literally nothing to rein in these abuses or should we try to rein them in?" Rep. Barney Frank, who led the Democratic effort on the bill, asked moments before the final vote.
Republicans cast the regulatory bill as a burden to business and argued that it would continue to protect companies considered too big to fail. They offered an alternative that called for special bankruptcy proceedings to dismantle failing financial institutions. That alternative failed.
"This house has been on a spending spree, a bailout spree and a regulatory spree that I could never have imagined in any of my prior 18 years here in Congress," Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio said.
Democrats accused Republicans of doing the bidding of big banks, pointing to a meeting in the Capitol Visitors' Center this week between GOP leaders and about 100 lobbyists. Even the White House took a swipe at House Republicans.
"I didn't expect them to help after a meeting with 100 lobbyists for the financial industry," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said in an interview. "I'm not surprised they are opposed to it. The lobbyists are trying to gut this."
Consumer advocates cheered the survival of the consumer protection agency but said the overall legislation fell short, especially in the regulation of complex investment instruments known as derivatives.
The legislation aims to prevent manipulation and bring transparency to the $600 trillion global derivatives market. But an amendment by New York Democrat Scott Murphy, adopted 304-124 Thursday night, created an exception for nonfinancial companies that use derivatives as a hedge against market fluctuations rather than as a speculative investment. The amendment exempted businesses considered too small to be a risk to the financial system.
A Democratic effort to make more companies subject to derivatives regulations and to end abusive-trading rules failed.
When the Obama administration first proposed a package, it called for regulations of derivatives without any exceptions. But a potent lobbying coalition that included Boeing Co., Caterpillar Inc., General Electric Co., Coca-Cola and other big companies persuaded lawmakers to dilute the restrictions.
"It's a weakness in the bill and a win for Wall Street," said Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America. "Hedge funds and others that are not bona fide hedgers of commercial risk will slip through this language."
The bill would create a Financial Services Oversight Council made up of the Treasury secretary, Federal Reserve chairman and heads of regulatory agencies to monitor the financial markets for potential threats to nation's system.
It would identify firms and activities that should be subject to heightened standards, including requirements that they place more money in reserve. The government could dismantle even healthy firms if they were considered a grave risk to the economy. Large firms with assets of more than $50 billion, and hedge funds with at least $10 billion in assets, would pay into a $150 billion resolution fund that would cover the costs of dismantling such a company.
It was that fund that Republicans argued amounted to yet another bailout pool.
But one Republican, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairman Sheila Bair, rebutted the House GOP critics, commending the legislation for creating a system to dismantle failing firms. "Ending too-big-to-fail by creating an effective resolution regime that will apply to large financial institutions is the key to ensuring that we end the need for future bailouts," she said.
The Federal Reserve, criticized for not spotting last year's crisis, would lose power in the legislation. The measure would limit the Fed's unilateral ability to inject large amounts of money into financial institutions. It also would take away the Federal Reserve's consumer regulation authority and would subject it to a broad audit by Congress' investigative arm.
The legislation also takes on Wall Street compensation. Company shareholders would get a nonbinding vote on the pay of top executives. Federal banking regulators would have to approve compensation practices, though not actual pay, at banks and bank holding companies.
The House vote marked a personal triumph for Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who began drafting the legislation last summer. Frank had to steer the various pieces of the bill amid Republican opposition and misgivings from pro-business Democrats.
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -
South African gold output fell 5.8 percent in volume terms and total mineral production dropped 8.5 percent in October compared with the same month in the previous year, official data showed on Thursday.
Production of non-gold minerals declined 8.9 percent, Statistics South Africa said on its website www.statssa.gov.za (Reporting by Muchena Zigomo)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
Insider selling has been massively outpacing insider buying, by 82x, according to FInviz data via Zero Hedge.
ZH: In the most recent data set, $11.6 million in stock was purchased by insiders, while a whopping $957 million was sold. And somehow pundits are still spinning this mass orchestrated sell into the bid by those in the know as a bull market.
Note the current selling vs. buying ratio is much higher than the 22x back in June. Thus while a high ratio isn't always a problem, clearly the relative increase has been enormous. Executives merely selling in order to fund their Christmas purchases? Tax-related selling? One can only hope.
