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The amount of methane in Earth's atmosphere shot up in 2007, bringing to an end approximately a decade in which atmospheric levels of the potent greenhouse gas were essentially stable. The new study is based on data from a worldwide NASA-funded measurement network.

The Conference Board announced that the leading index for Australia increased 0.4 percent and the coincident index increased 0.1 percent in August.

The U.S. capital gains tax rate compares unfavorably with many major economies, trading partners and developing countries, according to a new report by Ernst & Young LLP, commissioned by the American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF). The report compares individual long-term capital gains taxes among 25 major economies of the world and more than half of the countries surveyed have individual capital gains tax rates lower than that of the U.S.

The Federal Reserve has cut US interest rates by half a per cent. The cut will disappoint a significant group in the market who were tipping a bigger cut of 0.75%. The cut put the central bank's federal funds rate at 1%.

Camiant, Inc announced a newly published study, "Mobile Broadband in North America and Europe: Change is Key to Maintaining Profitability," that explores mobile broadband adoption and growth trends in Europe and North America as well as operators' capabilities to control and monetize growth. The custom research outlines the challenges in the mobile broadband marketplace and proposes a set of elements for new business models to alleviate expected negative consequences of broadband commoditization.

J.E. Robert Companies (JER)released the results of a recent survey conducted among US and European institutional investors looking at the current drivers for investment decisions. The majority of respondents are decision makers with leading pension funds, followed by executives from financial institutions, endowments and foundations. The key takeaway from the survey reveals the mandate for investing in commercial real estate is on the rise. Other notable factors cite the most attractive regions to invest in are: North America, followed by Asia and then Europe.

In its forecast, Merrill Lynch said there were a number of positives for residential housing and prices. But overall the news was gloomy for house prices and for those companies in the sector. "Firstly, we estimate underlying demand exceeds supply by 10-20% which, under normal conditions would lead to price pressure,"Merrills said in a note to clients.

Fitch Ratings says that the deteriorating global macro-economic conditions are likely to affect the performance of many European structured finance sectors. However, the agency notes that it expects the majority of negative rating migration to be limited to the more junior classes of notes.

Twice as many top U.S. companies publicly released sustainability data on their environmental, social and governance information in 2008 compared with three years earlier, and ethics outweighed economics for the first time as the primary reason for such disclosures, according to a KPMG International global analysis of corporate reports.

Mobile users around the world are delaying plans to upgrade or buy new phone handsets while also changing their current spending habits, due to the global economic crisis. These are the findings of the first "Mobile Attitudes" poll carried out by GetJar.