IT’S not the sort of advice you would expect to hear this holiday season, but chair of the 
National Family Planning Board, Dr Sandra Knight, did not mince words when she implored women to become more independent instead of depending on men for things…Artikel
Ben Bernanke talked about US monetary policy at meeting of the American Economics Association in San Diego Representatives of the EU attended. Read speech here.
Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has promised to force the Bank of Japan to change its monetary policy, and he seems likely to get his way. Though Abe’s approach isn’t risk-free, he is mostly right. Article
The prospects for the USA look bleak. Fiscal cliff negotiations faced none of America’s real problems. Obama does not appear ready to face facts. Foreign Affairs weighs in. 
Gang rape in New Delhi bringing the role of women in India to a head. Article
Yomiuri Shimbun is the world’s biggest-selling newspaper. Matsutaro Shoriki acquired the paper in its left-wing adolescence in the 1920s, and turned it into a scrappy, sensational pugilist for right-wing politics. He is also considered the founder of Japanese baseball. Article
“At the World Bank, we have made the world’s most pressing development issue—to reduce global poverty—our mission,” the bank proclaims.
Why, then, did the IFC give a Saudi prince’s company an attractively priced $26 million loan to help build the Mövenpick, a hotel the prince was fully capable of financing himself? The answer is that the IFC’s portfolio of billions of dollars in loans and investments is not in fact primarily targeted at helping the impoverished. At least as important is the goal of making a profit for the World Bank. Article
…In a country where many borrowers without access to formal financial institutions are 
forced to offset decades-old loans by marrying their female family members off to predatory private lenders, the importance of financial inclusion cannot be overemphasised…article
Andy Borowitz reports:
WASHINGTON The House of Representatives adjourned this evening after the legislative body collapsed from exhaustion brought on by hours of doing its job. Hundreds of congressmen complained of headaches, dizzy spells, and extreme fatigue after putting in what sources called “a six, maybe seven-hour day.” With the nation headed over the fiscal cliff, there was no indication when Congress might reconvene, since many of its members had to be hospitalized after what was described as their near-total physical meltdown. According to Dr. Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota Medical School, “Being forced to listen, compromise, and act like adults for minutes at a time was more punishing than these people could bear. Dr. Logsdon said that the gruelling ordeal of doing their jobs would likely keep members of Congress in the hospital for weeks. “I don’t see these people getting back to work until February at the earliest,” he said. “And that’s great news for this country. Happy New Year, America.”
Lessons on fraud. Article
