European Union

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde tells the Journal it will take much stronger fiscal and economic coordination among EU member states for the euro to work.

June 2 (Bloomberg) -- Wood is becoming a hot commodity in a new low-carbon world.

Power companies are burning more trees because the renewable fuel can be cheaper than coal and ignited without needing permits to release carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.

......The salient characteristic of structured products is the repackaging of strategies that involve long and short positions in derivatives and the underlying or a risk-free asset into an investment vehicle that is easily accessible by investors.......may be possible for institutional investors to enjoy the benefits of dynamic asset allocation strategies while using the buy-and-hold investment approach......

...... In the major European Union countries, the notional amount issued over the year 2004 for the retail market already reached Eur99.4 billion.......it is expected that institutional investors will follow this early lead by the retail market and significant inflows are expected to occur over the next few years.

Guaranteed Structured Products as Packaged Dynamic Asset Allocation Strategies

......Because of the presence of all sorts of frictions, dynamic replication of the non-linear payoff is typically not available to the institutional investors, which justifies the market for structured products that provides investors with an easy and static access to such payoffs.

In a second inaugural address tinged with evangelical zeal, George W. Bush declared: "Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world." The peoples of the world, however, do not seem to be listening. A new world order is indeed emerging - but its architecture is being drafted in Asia and Europe, at meetings to which Americans have not been invited.