ZURICH/LONDON, Jan 28 (Reuters) – Investors must not be
complacent in valuing assets after efforts by central banks to
pump money into struggling economies, a global financial risk
watchdog said on Monday.

After a meeting in Zurich, the Financial Stability Board
(FSB) chaired by Mark Carney said risks remain even though
markets have improved and banks are in a healthier state.

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 26 (Reuters) – International bankers
and finance ministers warned on Saturday that Europe’s crisis
was not over even though the euro currency is now stabilised, it
will take years to overcome economic malaise and mass
unemployment in Europe.

After a private meeting of leading commercial bankers,
government officials, central bankers and trade union officials,

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) – Greenpeace director Kumi Naidoo has a packed agenda at the World Economic Forum; the South African human rights activist, who a decade ago faced down riot police in Davos with thousands of other protesters, is being courted by big business.

“All my meetings with the CEOs are requested by them and not by me,” Naidoo told Reuters inside the WEF congress centre, between constant interruptions as delegates stopped to greet the head of the world’s biggest environmental group.

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 24 (Reuters) – The European Banking
Authority (EBA) is seeking more information on goings on at
Italian bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which said on
Wednesday it faced losses of as much as 720 million euros ($956
million) on past derivatives trades.

Monte dei Paschi, Italy’s third-largest bank and one of the
few in Europe not to meet the EBA’s stress test, already had to
ask for 3.9 billion euros in state aid last year to plug a
capital hole stemming from its vast government bond portfolio
and hedging bets gone wrong.

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) – Obesity, a major factor in diabetes and heart disease, imposes costs on both public and private sectors and is a drag on economic growth, but business leaders meeting in Davos can’t agree on what they can or should do to address it.

The World Economic Forum has some notable past achievements in healthcare, such as galvanizing support for the fight against AIDS and the vaccination of children in poor countries, but tackling the rise in obesity promises to be a much more complicated task.

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) – The South African government needs to “engage” with platinum and gold mining firms about proposed shaft closures and mass lay-offs and is not threatening them with license reviews, President Jacob Zuma said on Wednesday.

“We are not making any threat to anyone. We are saying: ‘Let us come together, let us discuss. This affects all of us. It does not affect companies only,’” he told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 23 (Reuters) – The South African
government needs to “engage” with platinum and gold mining firms
about proposed shaft closures and mass lay-offs and is not
threatening them with licence reviews, President Jacob Zuma said
on Wednesday.

“We are not making any threat to anyone. We are saying: ‘Let
us come together, let us discuss. This affects all of us. It
does not affect companies only,’” he told Reuters on the
sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

ZURICH (Reuters) – Italian premier Mario Monti will set the tone for beleaguered business and political leaders gathering in Davos this week for the annual World Economic Forum (WEF), with a speech entitled “Leading against the odds”.

The pow-wow will bring together more than 1,500 business leaders and up to 50 heads of state or government, many of them, like Monti, weathered by almost perpetual crisis as they fight to bring their economies and companies through global financial turmoil and a few homegrown scandals of their own.

By Emma Thomasson

(Reuters) – In February 2008, Thomas Minder, a Swiss businessman whose family-owned company is best known for its old-fashioned herbal toothpaste, attacked his banker, UBS Chairman Marcel Ospel, as if he were a form of stubborn plaque. At a shareholders’ meeting in Basel, he stormed the podium as Ospel addressed the crowd. Ospel’s bodyguards grappled with Minder and wrestled him away before he could land his symbolic blow — he was trying to hand the embattled head of Switzerland’s largest bank a bound copy of Swiss company law, which codifies corporate temperance.

“Gentlemen, you are responsible for the biggest write-downs in Swiss corporate history,” Minder had railed just a few minutes before, referring to UBS’s loss of $50 billion during the subprime meltdown that prompted it to seek a government bailout. “Put an end to the Americanization of UBS corporate philosophy!”

PARIS/ZURICH Jan 21 (Reuters) – Cartier watches maker
Richemont said sales growth had ground to a halt in the
Asia-Pacific region, rekindling fears about a market which has
been the driving force of luxury sales in recent years.

Shares in the world’s second-biggest luxury goods company
fell over 6 percent in early Monday trading after it posted a
smaller-than-expected rise in fourth-quarter group sales.