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More than 5 million jobs and $700 billion in economic activity could be generated if the U.S. pursued a plan to get 25 percent of its energy from homegrown sources by the year 2025, according to a study conducted by the University of Tennessee's Agricultural Economics Center.

The annual growth rate of the outstanding amount of debt securities issued by euro area residents was 9.1% in August 2007, compared with 9.0% in July. For the outstanding amount of quoted shares issued by euro area residents, the annual growth rate was 1.4% in August 2007, compared with 1.5% in July.

The euro area (EA13) industrial new orders index rose by 0.3% in August 2007 compared with July 2007. The index fell by 2.6% in July. EU27 new orders increased by 1.0% in August 2007, after a decrease of 3.5% in July. Excluding ships, railway and aerospace equipment4 industrial new orders gained 0.3% in the euro area and 0.9% in the EU27 in August 2007.

The European Commission has announced that it will seek a mandate from European Member States to negotiate a new Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) with major trading partners, including the US, Japan and Korea. Such an agreement would strengthen efforts to protect European intellectual property around the world, a key part of the EU's Global Europe trade strategy. ACTA’s goal is to provide a high-level international framework that strengthens the global enforcement of intellectual property rights and helps in the fight to protect consumers from the health and safety risks associated with many counterfeit products.

Data this past week showed the domestic economy is slow, but not slowing. The data are very choppy, unusually so. In fact, the last time the data showed this much of a choppy pattern was way back in the early 1980's, a period with a very low dollar but an economy in recession.

Diesel and heating oil at a much cheaper price than the fuel we buy at gas stations or for our heating tank - this wish will soon become a reality: thanks to a technological innovation made in Germany that makes it possible to turn oil and plastic waste product, such as polyethylene and polypropylene, into mineral fuels. Not only would this solve part of the energy problem, it would also address a disposal problem at the same time.

With the diversification of the global economy and social development, the global structural adjustment in the information industry is growing more and more visible. Market dominance has transferred from hardware to software and services. Developing the software industry is an important act in the informatization and industrialization of the IT industry as a whole. This act will rapidly promote China's economic growth. China has considered the software industry as the strategic industry.

America's policy of adding more ethanol to the nation's gas tanks in an effort to increase energy self-sufficiency will do little but drive food prices skywards, finds a new report from CIBC World Markets.

The convergence between hedge fund and equity market returns, combined with inconsistencies in hedge fund classification, could cause widespread confusion on how such funds should be used to diversify investment portfolios and result in unrealistic return expectations for investors, according to a study conducted by The Bank of New York Mellon and independent research firm Oxford Metrica.

AXA Rosenberg, an AXA Investment Managers company specializing in quantitative active global equity asset management, announced that a majority of institutional investors and consultants associated with more than $850 billion in investable assets believe the US economy faces significant headwinds as it moves towards 2008, and growth will trail Asia (ex-Japan), Japan, and Europe.