The worst of the global economic crisis may be over, but it's a weary world converging on Davos, the sleepy town in the Swiss mountains hosting the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

It's a world suffering from "global burnout syndrome", too weak to tackle another global shock, says Professor Klaus Schwab, the man who invented the annual meeting of the world's top business leaders and politicians 41 years ago.

The Federal Opposition is intensifying its campaign against a flood levy to pay for the Queensland flood crisis.

The Government is still working out how to pay for its share of the rebuilding cost, while sticking to its commitment to return the budget to surplus in 18 months' time.

It is considering the idea of a flood levy and Prime Minister Julia Gillard is promising a decision "soon".

But Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey is urging the Government to focus on budget cuts, and his argument is two-fold.

He said Iran "is doing everything it can to impede progress in the Middle East peace process, and to facilitate a situation in which that region cannot embark on a process of modernisation it so urgently needs".

He added: "And this is not because we have done something. At some point - and I say this to you with all the passion I possibly can - the West has got to get out of what I think is this wretched policy, or posture, of apology for believing that we are causing what the Iranians are doing, or what these extremists are doing. The fact is we are not.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12246410

The possibility that 2010 would emerge as the warmest year on record was raised by scientists after the year began with a period of El Nino conditions - unusually warm waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean, which transfer heat from the ocean to the atmosphere.

However, a switch to the opposing La Nina conditions halfway through the year cast doubt on whether the record would be broken.

Although December was exceptionally cold in some places - the coldest for 100 years across the UK - other regions, such as Greenland and eastern Canada, saw unseasonably warm weather.

The WMO notes a number of extreme weather events ocurring during 2010, including:

Chinese President Hu Jintao has acknowledged that "a lot still needs to be done" in China over human rights.

Mr Hu was speaking at a rare joint news conference with US President Barack Obama on the first full day of his state visit to the US.

Asked to justify China's human rights record, Mr Hu said China had "made enormous progress recognized in the world".

Mr Obama said he saw China's "peaceful rise" as good for the United States.

"The US has an interest in seeing hundreds of millions of people lifted out of poverty," Mr Obama said.

Bank of America Gears Up for WikiLeaks Fallout; Wall Street Takes Note

By Justin Grant January 03, 2011 URL:

Bank of America is gearing up to defend itself in the event that it proves to be the bank that WikiLeaks' Julian Assange has pledged to take down.

After seeing its stock swoon last November amid rumors that Assange was in possession of an executive's hard drive containing potentially damning information about the firm, Bank of America has been on high alert.

“People I don’t even know are calling me horrible names,” said Ms. Corfield, an art teacher who had pleaded the case of struggling teachers. “The mantra is that the problem is the unions, the unions, the unions.”