WASHINGTON (Reuters) - "U.S. jobs growth skidded to a near-halt in December and the unemployment rate hit a two-year high, according to a government report on Friday that raised recession fears and chances of more interest-rate cuts.

      The Labor Department said only 18,000 new non-farm jobs were added last month, the weakest performance since August 2003, while the jobless rate jumped to 5 percent from 4.7 percent in November -- the largest monthly rise since October 2001 in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks.

      "The unemployment rate moved up in a shocking way and that's sort of political dynamite that may make the Fed more prone to easing than otherwise," said Pierre Ellis, senior economist at Decision Economics in New York.

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-  Forget oil, the new global crisis is food

      "It's not a matter of if, but when," he warned investors. "It's going to hit this year hard."

      Mr. Coxe said the sharp rise in raw food prices in the past year will intensify in the next few years amid increased demand for meat and dairy products from the growing middle classes of countries such as China and India as well as heavy demand from the biofuels industry.

      "The greatest challenge to the world is not US$100 oil; it's getting enough food so that the new middle class can eat the way our middle class does, and that means we've got to expand food output dramatically," he said.

      The impact of tighter food supply is already evident in raw food prices, which have risen 22% in the past year.

      Mr. Coxe said in an interview that this surge would begin to show in the prices of consumer foods in the next six months. Consumers already paid 6.5% more for food in the past year.

      Wheat prices alone have risen 92% in the past year, and yesterday closed at US$9.45 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade.

      NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- "The labor market is expected to end 2007 with a whimper, but even that modest forecast could be seen as "the good old days," since monthly job losses may become common in the year ahead, according to economists.

      The December employment report due at 8:30 a.m. ET Friday should see a net gain of 70,000 jobs in the month, according to economists surveyed by Briefing.com, down from the 94,000 gain reported in November.

      That gain is roughly half of what is seen as necessary to keep pace with the growth in the nation's labor force, and economists are expecting the unemployment rate to edge up to 4.8 percent, a 22-month high for that key measure.

      Those forecasts were made before Thursday's ADP National Employment Report for December showed only a 40,000 job gain in the private sector in the month, sharply off of the 173,000 gain it calculated for November. The report uses payroll data from hundreds of businesses, both large and small.

      The Monster Employment Index, which tracks online job search listings, also fell 14 points in December, with only about half of that decline attributed to seasonal factor, according to the firm.

      With economists looking for economic growth to stall in the months ahead, many are forecasting that employers will get very cautious with their hiring plans going forward. While much of the job weakness in 2007 was concentrated in residential construction, manufacturing and finance, many believe that weakness will spread this year.

      "At the margins, businesses are being more cautious about spending," said economist David Kelly, the chief market strategist for JPMorgan Funds. "Consumers are addicts and they'll keep spending. But if businesses expect recession and put in hiring freezes, that'll have an impact."

      Kelly believes there are quarters ahead that will notch a net loss of jobs, even if the overall economy continues to grow. And many economists say they're nervous about whether the economy will be able to keep growing this year..."

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-  Has global warming stopped?

      Aren’t we told that if we don’t act now rising temperatures will render most of the surface of the Earth uninhabitable within our lifetimes? But as we digest these apocalyptic comments, read the recent IPCC’s Synthesis report that says climate change could become irreversible. Witness the drama at Bali as news emerges that something is not quite right in the global warming camp.

      With only few days remaining in 2007, the indications are the global temperature for this year is the same as that for 2006 – there has been no warming over the 12 months.

      But is this just a blip in the ever upward trend you may ask? No.

      The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly.

      In principle the greenhouse effect is simple. Gases like carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere absorb outgoing infrared radiation from the earth’s surface causing some heat to be retained.

      Consequently an increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases from human activities such as burning fossil fuels leads to an enhanced greenhouse effect. Thus the world warms, the climate changes and we are in trouble.

      The evidence for this hypothesis is the well established physics of the greenhouse effect itself and the correlation of increasing global carbon dioxide concentration with rising global temperature. Carbon dioxide is clearly increasing in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s a straight line upward. It is currently about 390 parts per million. Pre-industrial levels were about 285 ppm. Since 1960 when accurate annual measurements became more reliable it has increased steadily from about 315 ppm. If the greenhouse effect is working as we think then the Earth’s temperature will rise as the carbon dioxide levels increase..."

      HONG KONG (Reuters) - "Asian stocks slumped on Thursday after weak U.S. manufacturing data and record oil prices renewed fears that the world's top economy was heading into recession, sending investors towards the safety of gold.

      U.S. crude oil futures eased in Asia after briefly touching a record $100 a barrel on Wednesday, while gold steadied below an all-time high of $861 an ounce hit in the previous session.

      Asian companies face the prospect of higher energy costs just as data on Wednesday showed a key U.S. manufacturing index shrank in December for the first time in nearly a year, darkening the outlook for Asia's top export market.

      "People are showing concern about the overall global growth outlook. Oil is an underlying cost that a lot of companies face," said White Funds Management portfolio manager Angus Gluskie.

      "It also represents an increase in inflation that central banks around the world will have to deal with."

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-  Oil Futures Hit $100 a Barrel in Intraday Trading

      Speculation by oil traders is also believed to have contributed to the historic run up.

      Long-term fears stemmed from a report that OPEC believes it won't be able to meet global demand by 2024.

      Surging economies in China and India-- fed by oil and gasoline-- have sent prices soaring over the past year, while tensions in oil-producing nations like Nigeria and Iran have increasingly made investors nervous and invited speculators to drive prices even higher.

      NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- "Wall Street's top forecasters have some good news and bad news for 2008. Many think stocks will head higher but that unemployment will rise and the overall economy will slow.

      In other words, 2008 is going to look an awful lot like 2007. Despite falling housing prices and the subprime mortgage meltdown igniting fears about a broader economic slowdown, stocks are still on track to finish higher in 2007.

      For 2008, experts said investors need to be prepared for more woes in the slumping housing market and a slight rise in unemployment.

      "2008 will be a sluggish year," Abby Joseph Cohen, Goldman Sachs' chief U.S. investment strategist, told CNNMoney.com. She said many investors are concerned about what could be weak earnings growth in 2008.

      "Portfolio managers sense that 2008 will be a very difficult year for corporate profits," she said.

      But Cohen believes that stocks could finish 2008 in the plus column as investors anticipate better news in the latter part of the year.

      "We believe that the worst time is right now. The worst numbers will be at the end of 2007 and in the first half 2008. We expect an improvement in the second half," she said..."

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-  Record snow hits Michigan; New England braces

      DETROIT, Michigan (AP) -- "A fast-moving New Year's Day storm dumped more than a foot of snow on southeastern Michigan, a record blast that made driving hazardous, snarled the flight home for holiday travelers and threatened to do the same in New England.

      Thousands of people in Michigan and Ohio lost power. Authorities reported no deaths or serious injuries from the six-hour burst of snow in Michigan that started around midnight, but they said there were many spinouts and minor accidents.

      The storm left 10 to 16 inches of snow across parts of Oakland, Lapeer and St. Clair counties north of Detroit, the National Weather Service said. The western St. Clair County community of Capac, Michigan, reported 16 inches.

      "This storm most definitely packed quite a wallop," said Weather Service meteorologist David Shuler in Oakland County. "This will be a memorable storm for the amount of snow it dumped in such a short amount of time."