President Barack Obama holds a working dinner with, clockwise from left, President Hosni Mubarek of Egypt, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, and Tony Blair, the international Middle East envoy and former British Prime Minister, in the Old Family Dining Room of the White House, Sept. 01, 2010.

ECB: The European Central Bank's governing council is expected to agree today to maintain emergency bank support measures in place into 2011.

At the monthly meeting of the ECB in Frankfurt, the central bankers are expected to extend the emergency lending measures for Eurozone banks into 2011 and keep the benchmark rate at a record low of 1%. The ECB is also expected to issue new staff forecasts, which are likely to be revised up following the fastest growth in the second quarter in four years. However, caution is expected because of the bumpy recovery in the US.

Bundesbank president and ECB council member Axel Weber, signalled last month that he favoured the ECB maintaining support for banks through end-of-year liquidity tensions before deciding early next year when to withdraw emergency measures.

Live Register and retail sales data reflect fragile economy: Davy economist, Aidan Corcoran, comments  - - "Yesterday's double release by the CSO showed an economy struggling to establish an upward trajectory.

The Live Register rose again in August, increasing by 2,500 to 455,000 in seasonally adjusted terms. The rise is more modest than July's 8,500 person increase but was still enough to push the estimated unemployment rate to 13.8%, its highest value since July 1994. The high figure for females joining the register (1,900 this month) suggests that the increase may be largely due to knock-on effects from layoffs in the construction sector and from reduced public expenditure.

It is worth remembering that the Live Register itself does not measure unemployment and that many claiming benefit are not unemployed. But the trend in Live Register figures is used to extrapolate from the latest available unemployment rate (12.9% for Q1 2010). When the Quarterly National Household Survey is published (the Q2 survey is due later this month), it may show that changing migration flows are easing a little of the pressure on the unemployment rate.

Retail sales ex-motor fell 1% month-on-month in volume terms in July (-2.5% on the year). The decline was only 0.6% in value terms, showing that prices have broadly stabilised. Meanwhile, the August Markit Economics manufacturing purchasing managers’ index edged down to 51.1 from 51.4 in July. A number above 50 is still consistent with expansion, but the trend has been falling since April. With retail sales and unemployment figures pointing to weak domestic demand, it seems that some boost from global demand may be needed to shore up the Irish recovery."

Europe's two-speed recovery will be a persistent concern over 2010 and 2011, says Ulrich Leuchtmann, head of FX research at Commerzbank. He speaks to CNBC's Yousef Gamal El-Din, Chloe Cho & Maithreyi Seetharaman about the implications of this for the ECB:

Economic View: Caution on the Irish consumer warranted; Goodbody chief economist, Dermot O’Leary, comments  -- "Irish consumption trends have taken a renewed lurch downwards in recent months after a pretty impressive start to the year. Information on services spending will not be available until later this month at the time of the release of the Q2 National Accounts, but the latest retail sales give us an excellent idea of spending patterns. First of all, car sales continue to perform well, and were ahead by 14% yoy in July.

It is difficult to decipher underlying trends here given effects of the dramatic drop in 2009 (sales were still 40% below July 2008 levels for example) and the car scrappage scheme introduced by the government. Using core sales, which is a less volatile measure, there are certainly signs of renewed weakness after a positive start to the year. The 1% monthly fall in sales volumes means that core sales volumes have declined in three of the last four months and are very close to the trough level reached in December 2009. The worst performing category this year is bars, where sales volumes declined by 12% yoy in July.

It tells us something when Irish consumers have abandoned bars! Clearly, weak labour markets (unemployment rate is now 13.8% according to yesterday’s August Live Register data), general uncertainty around the outlook and probable emigration flows continue to have an effect on consumer spending. Our caution is summed up by the drop in consumer spending of 0.4% in 2010 in our forecasts. The latest evidence suggests that this caution is justified."

Japan is a leading indicator of what may occur in the West, says Stephen King, chief economist at HSBC Group. He tells CNBC's Sri Jegarajah, Karen Tso & Bernard Lo that the country's difficulties with deflation & debt are precisely the issues that are arising in Europe & the US now:

Total Produce: Fruit and vegetable distributor Total Produce a spin-off of Fyffes, today reported pre-tax profits of €21.7m for the six months to the end of June, a 5.5% increase on the same time last year. Revenues rose 1.7% to €1.33bn.

Goodbody analyst, Killian Murphy, commented:  -- "Total Produce issued a strong set of H110 results this morning. Revenue increased 1.7% yoy to €1.33bn (vs our expectation of a 1% increase yoy). This generated EPS growth of 1.5% yoy vs our expectation of -1% yoy). The out-performance was largely driven by FX gains, particularly in relation to the strength of the Swedish Kronar (+10% yoy), which is particularly important as it represents c.30% of the group. Operationally, the strength of the Fresh Produce division (+6% yoy) offset a disappointing performance from the Consumer division (-€1m yoy), as trading conditions in this sector remain difficult. Net Debt was €71.8m (down from €82.3m last year) and is expected to be inline with our FY forecasts. As a result of this strong start to the year, management now expects the full year outcome to be at the top end of its guided range of 5.5-6.5c. Currently we are forecasting EPS of 6c for FY10, which we expect to increase following these strong results and revised guidance."

Results detail

Discussing key pieces of economic data, with David Kotok, Cumberland Advisors, and Michelle Meyer, BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research:

US Markets

Following the report of surprise strength in the manufacturing sector - - see link to story in the Box below - - in New York Wednesday, the Dow jumped 255 points or 2.54% to 10,269.

The S&P 500 added 2.95% and the Nasdaq rose 2.97%.

Asia Markets

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 1.1% Thursday, reaching the highest level in two weeks.

The Nikkei 225 added 1.52%; China's Shanghai Composite added 1.14%; Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index climbed 0.82% and India's Sensex Index rose 0.18%.

Asia benchmarks

In Europe, the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 fell 0.23% Thursday.

The ISEQ has dipped 0.65% in Dublin.

CRH is up 0.86%; AIB  has declined 2.56% and BoI has dropped 1.32% and Total Produce is off 1.45%.

Tullow Oil (Add, Closing Price £12.34): East African expansion; Goodbody analyst, Gerry Hennigan, comments  -- "Tullow continued to expand its footprint in East Africa with the announcement this morning that it has farmed-into five blocks in Kenya and Ethiopia under an agreement with Africa Oil. A 50% holding has been acquired in Blocks 10BB, 10A, 12A and 13T in Kenya and the South Omo Bock in Ethiopia in exchange for a reimbursement of past costs (c.$10m - $12m) and a carry on future costs (up to $23.75m). The announcement this morning complements a prior deal announced with Centric Energy last month and its current programme of developing discoveries around Lake Albert in Uganda (guided gross reserves in excess of 2.5bn barrels against a model assumption of 2.75bn barrels). The size of the acreage acquired is significant given that it as approximately ten times larger than Tullow’s acreage in Uganda with a well drilled in the region by Shell in 1992 (Loperot-1) indicating similar quality crude (29 degree API waxy crude) to that uncovered in Uganda.

The prior deal with Centric announced on August 4th saw Tullow farm-into Block 10BA in Kenya acquiring a 50% share, the remaining interest being held by Centric. In exchange for that interest, Tullow is to: (i) pay $750k to Centric as compensation for 50% of the PSC acquisition costs; (ii) assume 80% of the first $30m outlayed to explore the Block; and (iii) assume 80% of the Centric bank guarantees during the period, while it is paying 80% of the exploration capex. Seismic data on the Centric Block is limited and dates back to 1991. Nevertheless 25 prospects in that block have been identified with a P90 to P10 resource estimate, according to Gustavson & Associates, in the range of 955 mmboe to 4,379 mmboe with a mean (P50) estimate of 2,188 mmboe. The intention now is to carry out a seismic survey of the blocks this year and next, with the potential to drill a well in 2011."

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