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Taiwan-based makers of notebook components such as connector, cable, power supply and cooling modules are seeing their profitability drop as the recent global copper price is hovering above US$10,000 per metric ton, up from US$3,000 in early 2009 and US$8,000, the highest price point in 2010, according to sources from notebook component makers.

The report by watchdog Consumer Focus, based on a survey carried out by TNS Research International, indicates that only 18% of homebuyers and tenants said that they took the EPC into consideration in their decision about a prospective property.

Chile's state copper think tank, Cochilco, on Wednesday raised its 2009 average copper price outlook to $2.30 per lb from $1.95, but slightly trimmed its 2009 copper output forecast to 5.38 million tonnes. The think tank also raised its copper price forecast for 2010 to an average of $2.70 per lb from $2.10 per lb, citing dynamic Chinese demand and expectations of a recovery of developed economies from global crisis.

Three types of risk The expert group put together by the Commission has already identified three types of risks: Import risk, where raw materials are imported from a politically instable region or from a country where the market economy does not work. "That is relatively easy to do as the World Bank has put together governance indexes which measure the political and economic stability index of countries," the EU official explained.    Production risk within the EU, with potential problems such as land access. "If we are in a country for example where the population density is very high, where urbanisation is very high, obviously access will be weak," the EU official explained. Environmental risk, based on indicators such as air or soil pollution, where the impact of raw materials use is measured from an environmental point of view. "This is innovative compared to other studies," the EU official said. "We have just launched a life-cycle analysis to determine what the environmental impact is for each raw material in terms of exploitation, use, treatment, recycling etc., for air or soil pollution as well as emissions of greenhouse gases."

Anglo American plc draws attention to the announcement made by Collahuasi, its 44% owned copper mine in Chile, relating to the approval of the prefeasibility study for the next expansion phase of this world class copper operation. The translated text of that announcement is copied below

But this is one case where you’re probably better off skipping the news stories and just diving straight in. Go ahead: Stop reading and click here to see for yourself.

The heads of the other mining businesses are also relatively new to Rio. Jean-Sébastien Jacques, head of copper, joined Rio in 2011 from Tata Steel while Alfredo Barrios came to the group from BP only in June and is running aluminium.

Bell Labs is back, recently setting a new world record of 10 gigabit per second over existing copper wires. Why is this important? Because it solves the fiber-to-residence problem. Fiber cables for high-speed Internet services are being laid all throughout the country and world, but at a relatively slow rate due to the "curb-to-residence" problem. Many home owners are reluctant to let their lawns be dug up to lay fiber from the curb to the house, and many Internet providers are reluctant to incur the cost. Now Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs (Murray Hill, New Jersey) has a invented a solution -- a method of running 1-to-10 gigabit per second broadband signals from the curb to the residence using the existing copper telephone lines already there.