Gesturing at a heavy chain-link fence that separates Ain Hilweh from the neighbouring town of Sidon, one Palestinian jokes that it reminds him of the homeland: it is just like the Erez checkpoint between Gaza and Israel.

ECONOMIST: Exiled Palestinians sit out the intifada

As process manufacturers, chemicals companies are on the upstream side of the overall consumer value chain, with heavy exposure to raw material pricing and energy costs.

FORBES: Risk Analytics: Insights for Chemicals Companies

The U.S. economic data slate Thursday is very heavy and includes the weekly DOE energy stocks report, ICSC chain store sales, domestic auto sales, the Challenger job cuts report, the ADP national employment report, weekly jobless claims, preliminary productivity and costs, the U.S. manufacturing PMI, the ISM manufacturing report, the consumer confidence index, and construction spending.

FORBES: A.M. Kitco Metals Roundup: Gold Firms on Improving China Manuf. Data; Heavy Slate of U.S. Econ. Reports Looms

His handwritten field notes show street by street calculations in "chain lengths, " a painstaking process that used metal chains and heavy brass compasses, theodolytes and geodesic transits to reconcile the difference between true north and magnetic north readings.

WSJ: The Greatest Grid | Museum of the City of New York | Crosshatching a Miracle | By Ada Louise Huxtable

The fall, the first for the British supermarket chain in 18 years, came after weak sales in Europe and Asia and heavy investment at home.

ECONOMIST: Business this week

Heavy book readers like me aligned with them entirely, gleefully enjoying the destruction they wrought on big chain and small local bookstore alike.

FORBES: Amazon Needs a Public Editor

Casual attention suggests it's just the same as it's always been perhaps a bit slower, but still running like a chain saw and darting around in ways that shouldn't really be possible, especially for such a heavy pitch.

WSJ: Mariano Rivera's Key: Change...Oh, and Cutter