The Reserve Bank of Australia lowered its forecasts for growth and inflation this year, enabling policy makers to reduce the benchmark interest rate should the economy weaken significantly.
The Bank of Korea held off raising borrowing costs for an eighth straight month as the economy slowed and exports declined due to the European debt crisis.
Governor Kim Choong Soo and his board kept the benchmark seven-day repurchase rate unchanged at 3.25 percent, the central bank said in a statement in Seoul today. The unanimous decision was predicted by 18 of 19 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
Policy makers in export-driven Asian countries have relied on monetary or fiscal stimulus to weather the European debt crisis. Australia unexpectedly held off cutting interest rates this week on signs of improvements in the U.S. and Europe. Kim has signaled that rates will have to rise at some point and said today that inflation expectations are high and the central bank is
India
Swiss central bank interim Chairman Thomas Jordan
A U.N. nuclear team arrived in Tehran early Sunday for a mission expected to focus on Iran’s alleged attempt to develop nuclear weapons.
The U.N. nuclear agency delegation includes two senior weapons experts _ Jacques Baute of France and Neville Whiting of South Africa _ suggesting that Iran may be prepared to address some issues related to the allegations.
The delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency is led by Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts, who is in charge of the Iran nuclear file. Also on the team is Rafael Grossi, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano’s right-hand man.
In unusually blunt comments ahead of his arrival in Tehran, Nackaerts urged Iran to work with his mission on probing the allegations about Iran’s alleged attempts to develop nuclear weapons, reflecting the importance the IAEA is attaching to the issue.
Tehran has refused to discuss the alleged weapons experiments for three years, saying they are based on “fabricated documents” provided by a “few arrogant countries” _ a phrase authorities in Iran often use to refer to the United States and its allies.
Ahead of his departure, Nackaerts told reporters at Vienna airport he hopes Iran “will engage with us on all concerns.”
“So we’re looking forward to the start of a dialogue,” he said: “A dialogue that is overdue since very long.”
In a sign of the difficulties the team faces and the tensions that surround Iran’s disputed nuclear program, a dozen Iranian hard-liners carrying photos of slain nuclear expert Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan were waiting at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport early Sunday to challenge the team upon arrival.
That prompted security officials to whisk the IAEA team away from the tarmac to avoid any confrontation with the hard-liners.
Iran’s official IRNA news agency confirmed the team’s arrival and said the IAEA experts are likely to visit the underground Fordo uranium enrichment site near the holy city of Qom, 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of the capital, Tehran.
During their three-day visit, the IAEA team will be looking for permission to talk to key Iranian scientists suspected of working on a weapons program, inspect documents related to such suspected work and secure commitments from Iranian authorities to allow future visits to sites linked to such allegations. But even a decision to enter a discussion over the allegations would be a major departure from Iran’s frequent simple refusal to talk about them.
The United States and its allies want Iran to halt its enrichment of uranium, which they worry could eventually lead to weapons-grade material and the production of nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is for peaceful purposes, such as generating electricity and producing medical radioisotopes to treat cancer patients.
Iran has accused the IAEA in the past of security leaks that expose its scientists and their families to the threat of assassination by the U.S. and Israel.
Iranian state media say Roshan, a chemistry expert and director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, was interviewed by IAEA inspectors before being killed in a brazen bomb attack in Tehran earlier this month.
Iranian media have urged the government to be vigil, saying some IAEA inspectors are “spies,” reflecting the deep suspicion many in Iran have for the U.N. experts sent to inspect Iran’s nuclear sites.
Haiti’s biggest employer has named a new chief executive to run Digicel, the mobile phone company announced Wednesday.
The Jamaica-based private company is bringing in Damian Blackburn to replace Maarten Boute, who will be leaving in March to spend more time with his family, Digicel spokeswoman Antonia Graham said.
Boute added in an email message that he was going “to do a deep recharge of (his) batteries” as he and his wife await the birth of their second child.
The new head, Blackburn, recently CEO for Digicel Honduras, has more than 14 years of experience in the telecommunications industry. He will oversee operations for the company’s largest market, Haiti, which accounts for about a quarter of its 11.1 million subscribers.
Digicel, whose Irish CEO Denis O’Brien promoted development in Haiti before the 2010 quake, has invested $600 million in the impoverished Caribbean nation since it began work in 2006 short term personal loan. The company’s foundation has also done charitable work such as building schools and helping with other infrastructure projects.
In recent months, the company erected street signs in the capital and road signs in the countryside and last year spent $18 million to renovate the historic Iron Market damaged in the quake.
In November, Digicel and Marriott International announced plans to build a $45 million, 173-room hotel in Port-au-Prince. The hotel is slated to open in 2014.
Digicel’s competitors include Voila and Natcom, a joint venture created last year between Vietnam’s Viettel and the Haitian government to replace the state-run Teleco.
On a quiet afternoon in Manhattan’s East Village, I’m having lunch inside a monastery while Rasanath Dasa, a banker-turned-monk, tells us about the moment he decided to leave Wall Street.
"My desire to work in Wall Street arose back in 1992, when foreign TV first came to India and I watched Charlie Sheen in the movie Wall Street," he tells the group of five who have traveled to his monastery. "For some reason, the images stuck in my head of ‘man, that’s what I really want to do — that fast-paced life.’"
But the religious life also appealed to Dasa. He joined a monastery while he was still hustling deals on Wall Street for his employer, Bank of America. When he started work on a project for Playboy, the stark contrast between his inner life and his day job became too much.
"At the time that the economy was tanking, I was actually making money selling sex," he says.
He’s a slight man who speaks slowly and carefully, pausing to gather his thoughts as he narrates. He’s sharing his story with us thanks to a startup called SideTour. Almost every week, Dasa hosts a lunch for those who want to chat with him about his journey from Wall Street to the monastery.
Forget daily deals on restaurants and spas, or flash sales on designer clothes. The hot e-commerce trend at the moment is selling one-of-a-kind experiences.
Lunch with Dasa — priced at $20 — is just one offering from SideTour’s lineup. Its roster also includes a race down an ice luge with an Olympic medallist (that’s $150) or a cooking session with the host of NBC’s America’s Next Great Restaurant at his West Village townhouse ($35), among dozens of other options. The company takes a 20% cut when customers pay for an event.
SideTour is far from alone in the market. In the U.S., a key competitor is Zozi, which has raised $11 million from investors and currently operates in more than 60 cities. Germany has a whole pack of startups in the field, including Regiondo, Yasuu and Gidsy, which recently expanded into the San Francisco market.
One notable rival, Vayable, offers up experiences around the globe. Launched in April, the service’s tours range from an exploration of an abandoned Soviet hospital in Berlin to an expert-led wine tasting in Paris.
Vayable founder Jamie Wong attributes the interest in selling experiences in part to the rough job market. More people are finding themselves out of work or in need of a second job.
"I think we’re in an era where both the economy and cultural shifts are really dictating this kind of change, where people are moving more towards a freelance type of lifestyle," Wong says.
SideTour founder Vipin Goyal backs that view. He says his startup gives people the opportunity to make money doing what they love.
"It’s a platform for people to share their expertise and monetize that," he says. "It’s a huge opportunity for folks to supplement their income or to create new sources of income for themselves."
Goyal got the idea for SideTour after he and his spouse left their jobs and bought around-the-world plane tickets for a six-month trip.
"In places that we had local folks to share experiences with, it made all the difference," he says. "In places we didn’t, our own experiences were highly dependent on serendipity."
He came home with the desire to build a platform that would help others connect with those kinds of experiences. Investors flocked to the idea: SideTour landed a spot in incubator TechStars’ first New York cohort this summer, and it recently raised $1.5 million in seed funding. Since launching five months ago, SideTour has hosted 70 experiences, with a 90% sell out rate.
So is this a lasting market or a flashy trend?
Both Wong and Goyal cite studies concluding that experiences, not things, are what make people truly happy.
"People are starting to reevaluate — especially in this economic environment — how they’re spending their money," Goyal says. "I think that’s where you see a lot of this focus on experiences."
Germany floated the idea of combining Europe
Japan may exempt home purchases from any increase in its sales tax, or reduce the amount of increase, Finance Minister Jun Azumi said.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda aims to double the 5 percent sales tax by 2015 to boost revenue and contain a public debt burden twice the size of Japan
Prime Minister Mario Monti