UNEMPLOYMENT

U.S. stock index futures declined Thursday morning, pointing to a lower opening on Wall Street ahead of a decisive European Union summit in Brussels, where EU leaders will meet to tackle the euro zone debt crisis head on. The summit will take place June 28-29.

?The time has come to do something more drastic toward economic transformation and freedom,? Zuma said.

It is just amazing how we never learn from other people's mistakes.

U.S. car sales are expected to have remained strong in June, maintaining a total seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of around 14 million vehicles, however sales are beginning to slow at the beginning of summer and a return to pre-recession sales levels is not foreseen anytime soon, according to early predictions by analysts at LMC Automotive and Kelley Blue Book.

Zuma?s ruling party has proposed that the nation?s key mining sector pay more in taxes to finance social spending and also wants to encourage state-owned enterprises to create more jobs.

Single-family home prices picked up for the third month consecutive month in April, showing signs that the housing market recovery is gaining traction.

Spain's short-term borrowing costs almost tripled during Tuesday's debt auction, a day after Moody's downgraded the country's banking system.

Spikes in unemployment might be a necessary evil to austerity reform measures meant to control the European financial crisis. But, when push comes to shove, those high levels of joblessness are actually making contagion of the crisis amongst countries worse.

A graphic published by Der Spiegel, Germany's top newsweekly, is making the rounds among global financial blogs and Facebook walls, succinctly putting into numbers the horrific economic carnage a collapse of the common currency union would entail.

As European leaders prepare for talks later this week regarding the euro zone's economic mess, Spain officially petitioned Monday for up to ?100 billion ($125 billion) in loans to rescue its banking sector.

The European Council's June 28-29 meeting will no doubt be the main focus of this week as some hope that new steps can be taken to grapple with the region's debt crisis.

The market sentiment is likely to remain subdued in the coming week as increasing expectations of a further global slowdown and economic headwinds from the euro zone will continue to weigh.

Hailed as an African reformer, Yoweri Museveni has now become an autocrat who bends the rules to stay in power and hands favors to his family. Nothing new for Africa, unfortunately -- but the exact opposite of what he himself once pledged.

Japan's economy appears to be weakening in the April-June quarter as business conditions deteriorate and exports flatten off, suggesting that the recovery may have lost momentum.

Forget the currency crisis: On Thursday, the Euro that counts is the soccer championship, pitting Germany versus Greece in the quarterfinals. Rarely in history have sport, politics and economics mixed so deeply.

Uruguay's government may begin selling marijuana if a bill proposing the tactic as a means to fight crime passes the legislature

Mitt Romney offered few details while articulating his immigration policy during a highly anticipated speech to Latino officials on Thursday.

Manufacturing has been one of the few bright spots of the otherwise frail U.S. economic recovery, but Markit said weaker overseas demand could be starting to slow hiring in the sector. U.S. manufacturing grew in June at the slowest pace in almost a year and hiring in the sector also slowed.

Greek officials will present the proposed revisions at a euro zone finance ministers' meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday.

First-time claims for jobless benefits in the U.S. fell by 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 387,000 in the week ended June 16, Labor Department said Thursday, but the overall level still shows a weak labor market.

U.S. stock index futures point to a lower opening Thursday after the Department of Labor's initial jobless claims report, which showed that more people than expected filed for unemployment benefits, and the National Association of Realtors' report on existing home sales.