Discover® Card released the findings of its second annual Thanksgiving Survey that asks consumers how they plan to spend the holiday. Despite the state of the economy, seven out of 10 respondents, or 70 percent, said they will not cut down on Thanksgiving travel this year.
In 1995, when The Harris Poll® began measuring online activity, less than 18 million adults used the Internet in their homes, offices, schools, libraries or other locations. Now, thirteen years, later, fully 184 million adults are online.
Significant potential exists for additional crop production in Southern Africa based on land availability. However, growing crops for biofuel feedstock will only be realised if there is concerted effort from key stakeholders to address the food shortages in the region.
EU Consumer Commissioner, Meglena Kuneva, the US Chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Nancy Nord, and the Chinese vice-Minister of AQSIQ, Wei Chuanzhong, met in Brussels for the first high-level trilateral summit on product safety. The high level meeting is intended to send a strong political signal of the determination of all sides to keep product safety at the top of the international political agenda, recognising that open markets can only be built on strong and secure management of global product supply chains.
The Internet will be a key tool for saving money this holiday shopping season, according to US online females surveyed in October 2008 by SheSpeaks. More than two-thirds of respondents said they would try to use more coupons and coupon codes this year, and nearly as many said they would spend more time online looking for bargains.
Increasing oil price and growing concerns over energy security are helping accelerate the development and commercialization of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). Federal and local governments have been proactively funding fuel cell technology and in the medium term, there would be rigorous developments in fuel cell technology, standardization of production and storage of hydrogen, and ramping up of the mammoth task of building hydrogen infrastructure.
Across Europe, we are transforming into a continent of content-craving "connect-aholics", according to the findings of the AMD European Connectivity Study of over 5,000 online respondents. Sponsored by AMD, in conjunction with independent research company, YouGov, 77% of respondents said they could not live without daily access to the internet.
The annual growth rate of the outstanding amount of debt securities issued by euro area residents decreased from 7.8% in August 2008 to 7.1% in September. For the outstanding amount of quoted shares issued by euro area residents, the annual growth rate was 0.8% in September 2008, the same as in August.
On 13 and 14 November the French Presidency of the European Union organised a conference in Lille on the equality of men and women in working life. At the same time, an informal meeting of ministers responsible for equal opportunities is being held to discuss the pay gap and making use at European level of good business practices.
The first estimate for the euro area (EA15) trade balance with the rest of the world in September 2008 gave a 5.6 bn euro deficit, compared with +2.9 bn in September 2007. The August 2008 balance was -9.4 bn, compared with +1.1 bn in August 2007. In September 2008 compared with August 2008, seasonally adjusted exports rose by 2.2% and imports by 2.1%.
