A visitor looks at a ten-piece set paper screenprint of Mao Zedong by Andy Warhol, which is part of Warhol's series of the late Chinese leader, displayed at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre during Christie's 2008 Spring Sales May 26, 2008.

LONDON | Wed Mar 13, 2013 8:33pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Chinese spending on art and antiques shrank by nearly a quarter in 2012, ending a streak of spectacular growth that helped drive up global prices and made China the biggest player in the market by 2011, a report said on Thursday.

The study, commissioned by the European Fine Art Foundation which organizes The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF), estimated the worldwide art and antiques market contracted by seven percent last year to 43 billion euros ($56 billion).

The study, compiled by academic Clare McAndrew, founder of the consulting firm Arts Economics, estimated Chinese art sales fell 24 percent to 10.6 billion euros in 2012.

Auction sales in China dropped an even steeper 30 percent, pushing it into second place in the art market rankings with a 25 percent share behind the United States, which regained its position as market leader with 33 percent.

Britain remained the world's third most important art market at 23 percent, according to the study released to coincide with this year's TEFAF which opens in Maastricht on March 15.

"The main reasons for the deceleration in (Chinese) growth were both demand factors (including a slowdown in economic growth and continuing liquidity constraints) and a reduced amount of high quality, high priced works coming onto the market," said the report.

"Many art funds and other speculative investors also reduced their participation in the market during the year."

The study added that collectors were increasingly focusing on works by so-called "blue chip" artists.

"Many art buyers are minimizing risk by opting for the best-known artists at the top end of the market with post-war and contemporary art performing strongly," it said.

That helped boost auction sales of post-war and contemporary art by five percent in 2012 to almost 4.5 billion euros and took that sector's overall market share to 43 percent.

Modern art was the next biggest sector with auction sales of 3.2 billion euros, representing 30 percent of the fine art auction market but a fall of 17 percent from its 2011 peak of 3.8 billion.

Private retail and dealer sales, as opposed to the auction room, fell four percent to 22.2 billion euros, with the lower end of the market recording the weakest performance.

Several art analysts have voiced concerns over what they say is a growing divide between the top end of the market, where ultra-wealthy buyers snap up rare treasures for staggering sums, and mid- to lower-tier sales which have been more susceptible to broader economic pressures.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

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A general view of Rangeley Lake, which is being monitored for mercury levels, in Rangeley, Maine in this file photo taken August 23, 2005.

GENEVA | Sat Jan 19, 2013 2:28pm EST

GENEVA (Reuters) - More than 140 countries have agreed on the first global treaty to cut mercury pollution through a blacklist of household items and new controls on power plants and small-scale mines, the United Nations said on Saturday.

The legally-binding agreement aims to phase out many products that use the toxic liquid metal such as batteries, thermometers and some fluorescent lamps, through banning global import and exports by 2020.

The treaty will require countries with coal-fired power plants such as India and China to install filters and scrubbers on new plants and to commit to reducing emissions from existing operations to prevent mercury from coal reaching the atmosphere.

"We have closed a chapter on a journey that has taken four years of often intense but ultimately successful negotiations and opened a new chapter towards a sustainable future," said Fernando Lugris, chair of the negotiations.

The deal also includes measures to reduce mercury use in small-scale gold mining, although stopped short of an all-out ban. Gold prices near $1,700 a metric ton have spurred the use of mercury as a catalyst to separate gold from its ore.

Emissions of mercury from artisanal and small-scale gold mines, which are usually unofficial and often illegal, more than doubled to 727 metric tons in 2010 from 2005 levels, overtaking coal-fired power plants as the main source of pollution from the metal.

The Minamata Convention on Mercury - named after the Japanese city where people were poisoned in the mid-20th century from industrial discharges of mercury - needs ratification from 50 countries and is expected to be formalized later this year.

The treaty requires governments to draw up national rules to comply and could take between three to five years to take effect.

As mercury, also known as quicksilver, is released to the air or washed into rivers and oceans, it spreads worldwide, and builds up in humans mostly through consumption of fish. The brains of fetuses and infants are particularly vulnerable to damage from mercury.

Officials said the financing required to bring in cleaner technology for industry and help developing countries come up with local solutions was one of the major sticking points of the six-day negotiations.

"Financing was agreed very early this morning and it was one of the most difficult aspects," said Lugris.

Japan, Norway and Switzerland have made initial pledges totaling $3 million in financing and an interim financial arrangement will be discussed in April by the Global Environment Facility, said Tim Kasten, head of the chemicals branch of UNEP.

Countries failed to agree on including vaccines where mercury is sometimes used as a preservative.

SOFT LANGUAGE?

While negotiators celebrated the deal reached after all-night talks in the fifth and final round of talks, the response from some non-governmental organizations (NGO) was more muted.

"The treaty will not bring immediate reductions of mercury emissions. It will need to be improved and strengthened, to make all fish safe to eat," said David Lennett from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

NGO IPEN, which aims to reduce the health risk of chemicals, described the language of the treaty as "soft" and "somewhat voluntary in nature" and said it was unlikely to result in a global reduction of mercury releases.

"Countries that do not want to do this can escape quite easily," said IPEN's Joe DiGangi.

In one notable climbdown, countries abandoned their goal of setting concrete targets for pollution levels from coal-fired power plants and cement factories, but negotiators said they would defer these discussions to a later meeting.

For mining, the treaty requires action from governments to reduce mercury use where artisanal and small-scale gold mining is "more than insignificant" but has no list of countries.

Alternatives to mercury in small mines are available, such as magnetic sluices, but developing countries have complained about the cost of implementation.

Many developing countries including Brazil and Mali strongly resisted attempts to limit imports of mercury, according to IPEN, because of the economic importance of small mines.

"The supply is still available, the practice of artisanal mining is still polluting and we are left with a mess at the end and there is no funding to clean it up," said DiGangi.

Artisanal and small gold mines now account for around 35 percent of global mercury pollution, according to a study by the U.N. Environment Programme published last week.

Other NGOs welcomed the number of products included in the treaty.

"The list of products was much longer than we expected," said Elena Lymberidi-Settimo, a coordinator at Zero Mercury Working Group. "The treaty sends the right market signal and will eventually lead to less exposure worldwide."

Many nations have already tightened laws - the United States barred exports of mercury from January 1, 2013. The European Union, until 2008 the main global exporter, barred exports of the liquid metal in 2011.

(Reporting by Emma Farge and Tom Miles; Editing by Sophie Hares)

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LONDON | Tue Oct 9, 2012 8:23am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - A global supervisory body for securities has published its final recommendations for new rules for the $4.7 trillion money market fund sector despite opposition from its U.S. member.

The recommendations were called for by leaders of the world's top economies (G20) a year ago as part of efforts to crack down on "shadow banks" that also include hedge funds, special investment vehicles and repurchase agreements.

The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) said the recommendations - which the body's regulatory members such as Britain's Financial Services Authority will apply locally - cover valuations, liquidity management, use of ratings and disclosures to investors.

"Although money market funds, which provide a significant source of credit and liquidity, did not cause the crisis, their performance during the 2007/08 financial turmoil highlighted their potential to spread or even amplify a crisis," IOSCO said in a statement.

Some regulators worry that as traditional banks become more heavily regulated, risky credit activities will shift to shadow banks which are currently less regulated.

IOSCO's 15 recommendations supplement reforms already introduced in the United States and Europe in 2010. It will review within two years how they are being applied.

The industry says money market funds are safe and don't need more rules.

Most of the commissioners from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), an IOSCO member, opposed the publication of the global watchdog's recommendations.

In August, the SEC commissioners blocked U.S. proposals to introduce more rules for the money market funds sector on top of those already implemented in the United States in 2010.

IOSCO said that apart from U.S. opposition, there were no other objections to it publishing the recommendations on Tuesday.

The watchdog's members, who also include Bafin of Germany and Japan's Financial Services Agency, regulate more than 95 percent of the world's securities markets and are required to implement agreed rules.

(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Laurence Fletcher and David Holmes)

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1 of 10. International Monetary Fund's Economic Counsellor and Director of Research Department Olivier Blanchard (2nd R), Deputy Director Jorg Decressin (2nd L), Division Chief Thomas Heibling (R) and Senior Press Officer Gita Bhatt hold a news briefing on the World Economic Outlook (WEO), at the Tokyo International Forum in Tokyo October 9, 2012. The IMF said the global economic slowdown is worsening as it cut its growth forecasts for the second time since April and warned U.S. and European policymakers that failure to fix their economic ills would prolong the slump.

TOKYO | Tue Oct 9, 2012 9:02am EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - The IMF said the global economic slowdown is worsening as it cut its growth forecasts for the second time since April and warned U.S. and European policymakers that failure to fix their economic ills would prolong the slump.

Global growth in advanced economies is too weak to bring down unemployment and what little momentum exists is coming primarily from central banks, the International Monetary Fund said in its World Economic Outlook, released ahead of its twice-yearly meeting, which will be held in Tokyo later this week.

"A key issue is whether the global economy is just hitting another bout of turbulence in what was always expected to be a slow and bumpy recovery or whether the current slowdown has a more lasting component," it said.

"The answer depends on whether European and U.S. policymakers deal proactively with their major short-term economic challenges."

Ahead of the Tokyo meeting, policymakers have flagged the U.S. "fiscal cliff" -- government spending cuts and tax raises due to take affect early in 2013 -- and resolving the euro area's debt crisis as the top issues facing the global economy.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday that reforms in Europe "could take years to bear fruit".

"In these periods of time, where people were very worried about the risk of collapse in Europe, you saw an impact on financial markets and confidence that was very, very substantial," he told a meeting of Indian and U.S. business leaders in New Delhi. "Europe still has a very hard road ahead of them."

His comments echoed those of Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who last week said Europe's debt crisis was "a clear and present danger".

The IMF forecast in its latest health check on the world economy that global output in 2012 would grow just 3.3 percent, down from a July estimate of 3.5 percent.

That would make this the slowest year of growth since 2009 when the world was struggling to pull out of the global financial crisis. It predicted only a modest pickup next year to 3.6 percent, below its July estimate of 3.9 percent.

It projected U.S. growth would be a little more than 2 percent this year and next, but forecast a contraction in the euro area this year by 0.4 percent and modest growth in 2013 of 0.2 percent.

Emerging markets are still expected to grow four times as fast as advanced economies, but the IMF took a sharp knife to its estimates for India and Brazil, with the latter now seen growing slower than the United States this year.

It also cut its expectations for China in 2012 and 2013 but warned against being overly pessimistic about the prospects of these economies, which were major engines of growth in the global financial crisis.

"Let me be clear. We do not see these developments as signs of a hard landing in any of these countries," IMF Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard said at a briefing, referring to China, India and Brazil.

MORE AT WORK

The IMF said "familiar" forces were dragging down advanced economy growth: fiscal consolidation and a still-weak financial system, the same problems that have plagued the world since the global financial crisis exploded in 2008.

"More seems to be at work, however, than these mechanical forces - namely, a general feeling of uncertainty," Blanchard said in a commentary on the forecasts.

Measures of risk and uncertainty, such as the VIX volatility gauge in the United States, remain at low levels, Blanchard pointed out, which makes it difficult to assess the nature of the uncertainty.

"Worries about the ability of European policymakers to control the euro crisis and worries about the failure to date of U.S. policymakers to agree on a fiscal plan surely play an important role, but one that is hard to nail down," Blanchard said.

Geithner, who was speaking at an India-U.S. business forum in New Delhi, said he was "relatively confident" that Washington can manage its fiscal challenges.

"Now we're growing close to potential but if you look through those factors, it's a little more encouraging than you might think," he said. "We are now in a much stronger position than what is true for any other major developed economy."

Concerns about the health of the global economy and corporate earnings prospects have weighed on financial markets. World shares as measured by the MSCI world equity index .MIWD00000PUS fell 0.7 percent on Monday. The index was flat in Asia on Tuesday.

S&P 500 earnings for the third quarter are forecast to have fallen more than 2 percent from the year-earlier period, which would be the first decline in three years, Thomson Reuters data shows.

The IMF said financial conditions are likely to remain "very fragile" over the near term because repairing euro zone problems will take time and there are concerns about how the U.S. economy will cope with the expected spending cuts and tax increases.

The "urgent policy priorities" for the United States should include avoiding the fiscal cliff, which the IMF said at the extreme would amount to a fiscal withdrawal of more than 4 percent of GDP in 2013, and economic growth would stall.

"Both sides of the political isle (should) signal that they are willing to compromise and that they're willing to get this done ... that could help lower the level of uncertainty that is affecting U.S. investors and consumers," IMF First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

Resolving the euro area crisis would require progress in adopting and implementing the various measures discussed, including banking and fiscal union, the IMF report said.

"If the complex puzzle can be rapidly completed, one can reasonably hope that the worst might be behind us," Blanchard said.

Euro zone finance ministers on Monday unveiled the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), a 500 billion euro rescue mechanism for lending to distressed economies in the 17-country bloc.

But perhaps the biggest contagion risk for the region is Spain, which a British finance ministry source suggested will be the top issue for finance ministers in Tokyo.

"We have always been very clear that the euro zone needs to take significant action," the source said.

The euro zone has already set aside 100 billion euros for Spain to recapitalize its banks but financial markets believe a government bailout will follow in coming weeks or months.

(Additional reporting by Anna Yukhananov in TOKYO, David Milliken in LONDON and Manoj Kumar and Rajesh Kumar Singh in NEW DELHI; Editing by Neil Fullick, Alex Richardson and Ron Popeski)

(This story corrects quote by Geithner in 7th paragraph)

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The King and his Court

Geographical extent

The Maya civilization extended throughout the present-day southern Mexican states of Chiapas, Tabasco, and the Yucatán Peninsula states of Quintana Roo, Campeche and Yucatán. The Maya area also extended throughout the northern Central American region, including the present-day nations of Guatemala, Belize, northern El Salvador and western Honduras.

The Maya area is generally divided into three loosely defined zones: the southern Pacific lowlands, the highlands, and the northern lowlands. The Maya highlands include all of elevated terrain in Guatemala and the Chiapas highlands. The southern lowlands lie just south of the highlands, and incorporate a part of the Mexican state of Chiapas, the south coast of Guatemala, Belize and El Salvador. The northern lowlands cover all of the Yucatán Peninsula, including the Mexican states of Yucatán, Campeche and Quintana Roo, the Petén Department of Guatemala, and all of Belize. Parts of the Mexican states of Tabasco and Chiapas are also included in the northern lowlands.

Maya civilization

new photo of  Curiosity Rover

Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover Animation

2012 Mayan vs Alien

google project glass  VS  nokia future technologies glasses

GOOGLE PROJECT GLASS :

NOKIA  FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES GLASSES :

Usain Bolt to enter to play cricket:

CHICAGO | Thu Aug 9, 2012 8:18pm EDT

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A ruling in the case of failed futures brokerage Sentinel Management Group could make it more difficult for customers to recoup money lost in the much larger collapse of MF Global, according to Sentinel's bankruptcy trustee.

A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld a ruling that puts Bank of New York Mellon ahead of former customers of Sentinel in the line of those seeking the return of money lost in the 2007 failure of the suburban Chicago-based futures broker.

The appeals court affirmed an earlier district court ruling that the bank had a "secured position" on a $312 million loan it gave to Sentinel, which turned out to have been secured by customer money.

Futures brokers are required to keep customers' funds in dedicated accounts to protect them from being used for anything other than client business.

However, Thursday's ruling suggests that brokerages can use customer funds to pay off other creditors, Sentinel trustee Fred Grede told Reuters.

"I don't think that's what the Commodity Futures Trading Commission had in mind" with its requirement that brokers keep customer money separate from their own, he said.

"It does not bode well for the protection of customer funds."

Worse, Grede said, is that the ruling suggests that a brokerage that allows customer money to be mixed with its own is not necessarily committing fraud.

That may raise the bar for proving that MF Global Holdings Ltd, under then-CEO Jon Corzine, misused customer funds as it scrambled to meet margin calls to back bets on European debt in the brokerage's final days. A $1.6 billion customer shortfall remains.

Corzine has said he did not know about the transfer of any customer money.

"I'm sure Mr. Corzine's attorneys will get ahold of this ruling and use it for all it's worth," Grede said.

A lawyer for Corzine, who has not been charged with any crimes, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CORZINE MAY STILL FACE SCRUTINY

CME Group Executive Chairman Terrence Duffy, whose firm was MF Global's frontline regulator, has said MF Global made unlawful transfers of customer money to plug its own liquidity needs.

James Koutoulas, head of the Commodity Customer Coalition, which has been an advocate for MF Global clients, said Corzine could still face scrutiny for the transfers.

The Sentinel ruling is "not an end-all-be-all acquittal for Corzine," he said.

Sentinel allegedly pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in customer assets to secure an overnight loan at Bank of New York Mellon, leaving the bank in a secured position but Sentinel's customers out millions.

Customer funds were allegedly moved from the protected accounts to other accounts so they could be used as collateral for loans to Sentinel's own trading operations.

The appeals court said that "perhaps the bank should have known that Sentinel violated segregation requirements" but agreed with the district court's earlier ruling that "such a lack of care does not rise to the level of the egregious misconduct" needed to reprioritize a claim.

"That Sentinel failed to keep client funds properly segregated is not, on its own, sufficient to rule as a matter of law that Sentinel acted ‘with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud' its customers," U.S. Circuit Judge John D. Tinder wrote in the ruling.

The decision was a blow for Grede, who had sought to strip Bank of New York Mellon of its secured position.

Sentinel, whose customers are missing about $600 million, largely managed money for other futures brokers, delivering outsized returns that, Grede says, were juiced up by improperly using customer money to secure loans that went to fund risky trades.

The scheme unraveled when the credit crisis hit in the summer of 2007.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Gary Hill and Phil Berlowitz)

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