Menu

The Conference Board announced that the leading index for the U.K declined 0.2 percent, and the coincident index increased 0.2 percent in August.

Green campaigners warned that proposals for certifying palm oil as sustainable are flawed. As the Round Table for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) presented proposals to label sustainable palm oil, Friends of the Earth groups staged an installation of screaming tree stumps outside the meeting in Brussels, representing the current environmental violations caused by producing palm oil.

In Russia 47 million people are exposed to high concentrations of nitrous dioxide. Half the population in rural Tajikistan, and one-third in Moldova, lack access to clean water. Leaded petrol is sold legally in Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Many of these problems can be traced back to a common Soviet legacy that includes polluting industries, inadequate infrastructure, and outdated environmental management approaches.

In 2006, China made certain progress in upgrading non-ferrous metals industry, and the growth rate of fixed assets investment in non-ferrous metals declined somewhat. The investment in non-ferrous metals industry added up to RMB 1180.8 billion, up 24.1% and the growth rate decreased by 11% over 2005; besides, the investment in non-ferrous metals industry accounted for 12.7% of China's total investment in fixed assets in urban and rural areas.

The Budgets Committee has completed its first-reading vote on the 2008 draft budget. MEPs wish to reduce the amount allocated in the budget to the Common Foreign and Security Policy and to use the flexibility instrument to fund the EU's external policy. Funding for Galileo and the European Institute of Technology is sharply increased. If the plenary approves these proposals, some hard bargaining with the Council is in store.

The European Commission has adopted two proposals that will mark a step forward in the development and marketing of clean and safe hydrogen vehicles. The first is the setting up of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Technology Initiative (JTI), an ambitious industry-led integrated programme of Research, technology development and demonstration activities. This Public-Private Partnership driven by European industry will be implemented over the next 6 years with a financial contribution from the EU of € 470 million, to be matched by the private sector. The JTI should accelerate the development of hydrogen technologies to the point of commercial take-off between 2010 and 2020. Secondly, a number of hydrogen cars are already ripe for market introduction today. Thus, the Commission proposes to simplify their approval so that they will be seen more often on Europe's streets. Both proposals will now be considered by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.

Last week's highlights: What a difference one month makes. When the Labor Department reported a net job loss for August, alarm bells went off about a brewing recession around the corner. The fear was that the drop in jobs might have been the last straw and the resilient consumer would finally wilt, except, it didn't happen. First, consumer confidence readings reflected a quite restrained response to the labor report, and a quite prescient one.

ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet told MEPs that risks to price stability were still on the upside, but that more data was needed before any new decision on interest rates could be taken. The economic fundamentals were favourable, though risks to growth prospects were on the downside.

Most of America’s small- and mid-sized businesses have failed to explore the significant growth opportunities offered by an increasingly global economy. Indeed, a new survey conducted for UPS shows 67 percent of the nation’s small-to-mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) are still chaining themselves to the U.S. economy.

While 63 percent of U.S. consumers agree they are "very concerned" about the effects of climate change or global warming, a wide disparity exists between how greenhouse gas emissions are actually generated and which culprits Americans think are to blame, according to a third-annual national study that evaluates the consumer mindset on energy use and conservation.