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From January to August, the total investment in real estate development amounted to 2,114.7 billion yuan, up by 14.7 percent year-on-year, and went up by 3.1 percentage points over first seven months, while that of a decrease of 14.4 percentage points over same period of previous year. Of which, investment in commercial residential buildings reached 1,484.8 billion yuan, 10.9 percent of increase year-on-year, picking up 2.7 percentage points over first seven months, or 20.8 percentage points dropped over same period of previous year, which occupied 70.2 percent of the investment in real estate development.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index™ (LEI) for the U.K. increased by 0.7 percent in July to 92.9 (2004 = 100), following 1.0 percent gains in both June and May. Volume of expected output, the yield spread and consumer confidence made the largest positive contributions to the index.

The World Bank Group announced that its financing of renewable energy and energy efficiency projects and programs in developing countries rose 24% in the last fiscal year to reach $3.3 billion, the highest ever. Total renewable energy and energy efficiency commitments for the year ended June 30, 2009 accounted for more than 40% of total Bank Group energy lending.

EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva announced the results of an EU-wide investigation - involving 26 Member States and Norway and Iceland - into misleading advertising and unfair practices on websites selling consumer electronic goods. The clampdown covered 369 websites selling six of the most popular electronic goods to consumers in the EU - digital cameras, mobile phones, personal music players, DVD players, computer equipment and game consoles. It covered 200 of the biggest websites selling electronic equipment in the EU as well as more than 100 websites which were targeted on the basis of consumer complaints.

A record 131 economies around the globe reformed business regulation in 2008/09, according to the IFC–World Bank Doing Business 2010 report.

On the last business day of July, the number of job openings in the U.S. was little changed at a series low level of 2.4 million, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported. The hires rate was little changed and remained low at 3.1 percent in July. The total separations rate remained at a series low of 3.3 percent. This release includes estimates of the number and rate of job openings, hires, and separations for the total nonfarm sector by industry and geographic region.

comScore, Inc. released an overview of the government site category, which revealed that more than 81 million Americans visited government sites in July, representing 42 percent of the U.S. Internet audience.

Americans feel far worse about their financial situation than they have in the past seven months and continue to be pounded by financial woes driven by increased credit card, healthcare and personal loan issues, according to the Consumer Reports Index September '09 Report.

Growing advantages for the better educated and likely continuing high levels of unemployment as economies move out of recession will provide more and more young people with strong incentives to stay on in education. Governments need to take account of this in planning education policies, according to the latest edition of the OECD’s annual Education at a Glance.

Nearly one out of four U.S. households watches TV online, up from 20 percent last year, reports The Conference Board and TNS. And Hulu.com is fast becoming the hot site – just behind YouTube.com – for watching TV programs. In fact, the number of households visiting Hulu.com has increased almost fourfold in the last year.