Monday Business Edition

In Gamzyuki, a tiny village in the Kaluga region, around 200 kilometres (125 miles) south of Moscow, a fish farm has the ambitious goal of producing 16 tons of the sturgeon eggs per year by 2014.

Opened three years ago, it is one of dozens of sturgeon farms that have opened in Russia recently, aiming to rebuild the nation’s reputation as the world’s premium exporter of caviar.

Analysts say consumers are warming to the notion of more connectivity in their cars, with “apps” for information and entertainment just as they have with their smartphones or tablet computers.

“Initially, putting Internet access in the car sounds like a distraction and frivolous but as time passes it will become a part of our lives and we will feel uncomfortable not having access,” said Jeff Kagan, an independent telecoms analyst.

He complains he is underpaid, overworked, harassed by police and frightened by the reckless driving on India’s traffic-choked roads, which have the world’s highest rate of fatalities.

“I want to leave. The police treat us like dirt and driving at night is dangerous,” Moin, who gets just 3,000 rupees a month ($65) from his private trucking company employer, told AFP at a Mumbai suburban truck halt.

Only a few months ago investors were pouring into Indian equities, seeing the country as a promising high-growth market and talking about the “India story”. But now the mood looks to be on the turn.

The government’s lack of progress on economic reform, massive corruption scandals including the cut-price sale of telecoms licences, and eight interest rate hikes to try to tame high inflation have all had an impact.

The 80-year-old Buffett was in India to join his close friend, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, to prod India’s super-rich to part with some of their wealth as part of the charity drive the pair launched last year.

Buffett, worth an estimated $50 billion through his investment company Berkshire Hathaway, told Indian business leaders bluntly there was no conflict between making money and being philanthropic.

The British firm’s $16 billion alliance to jointly explore the Arctic with state-held Rosneft was hailed on its announcement January 15 as the “deal of the century” that would help resurrect Russia’s dour business image abroad.

It marked a triumphant return for BP after the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill and a chance for Russia to roll back its reputation for coming up with bizarre pretexts for stripping energy majors of their prized possessions.

The two will be speakers at an event set for Wednesday at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s largest business lobbying group, in its Corinthian-columned headquarters situated within view of the White House.

Warren, 61, is an earnest Harvard Law School professor brought up in Oklahoma, while Dimon, 55, is a consummate New York City insider and one of Wall Street’s richest CEOs.

Jobs are considered a lagging indicator. They typically recover many months after the economy comes out of a recession, and this cycle was no exception. So will troubles in Japan, Libya and elsewhere push up U.S. unemployment later this year?

“The U.S. economy is headed for another soft patch brought on by the double shock,” said IHS Global Insight chief economist Nariman Behravesh, referring to Japan and upheaval in the oil-producing Arab world.

Companies are rushing to secure extra financing to repair damage to their operations in the areas worst-hit by the disaster as well as fund their day-to-day operations following fall in revenue amid output disruptions, the banks said.

Japan’s top three banks, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, Mizuho Corporate Bank and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ have received requests for new loans totaling 2.6 trillion yen ($32 billion) over two weeks, said the banks.

Until, that is, a coffee-colored mystery liquid starts to seep out of a nearby men’s room.

“Oh, Jesus!” Curie exclaims, scrambling to his feet. He checks the seat of his suit pants for stains — nothing.

The Nikkei found support near the bottom of a narrow 200-point range in which it hovered last week, helped by ex-dividend date buying and bargain-hunting by foreigners and short-term investors.

Domestic players kept off-loading holdings in Tokyo stocks or have already closed positions ahead of the end of the fiscal year on March 31, putting the market under more selling pressure.

But Kwapnoski says she faced obstacles at Wal-Mart-owned Sam’s Club stores in both Missouri and California: Men making more than women and getting promoted faster.

She never heard a supervisor tell a man, as she says one told her, to “doll up” or “blow the cobwebs off” her make-up.

Ex-Comptroller Alan Hevesi was set to learn Monday whether he’ll have to spend time behind bars. The Democrat pleaded guilty in October to accepting campaign contributions and free travel in exchange for investing hundreds of millions of dollars of state pension money with a certain firm. He’s the highest-ranking official in a pay-to-play scandal that has brought guilty pleas and civil settlements from a roster of politicians, financiers and firms.

Hevesi, 71, could get up to four years in prison or no jail time at all. The decision is up to a judge who happens to have close ties to the estranged father of Hevesi’s lawyer.

The coastal power plant, located 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, has been leaking radiation since a magnitude-9.0 quake on March 11 triggered a tsunami that engulfed the complex. The wave knocked out power to the system that cools the dangerously hot nuclear fuel rods.

The frantic effort to get temperatures down and avert a widening disaster has been slowed and complicated by fires, explosions, leaks and dangerous spikes in radiation. Two workers were burned after wading into highly radioactive water, officials said.

The broader EGX100 index had surged 5 percent within the first 15 minutes of trading, triggering a 30 minute suspension of trading for the fourth consecutive session. The benchmark EGX30 index climbed roughly 7.2 percent before trading was halted. It slumped, however, with the resumption of trading and was up just 0.84 percent by 12:15 p.m. Cairo time, according to the Egyptian Exchange’s Web site.

“There’s a cooling as people re-evaluate their holdings, especially those who were buying aggressively,” said Ahmed Hanafi, head of research at Gothour Trading.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a Sunni leader whose premiership has greatly expanded Turkey’s regional influence, was also expected to meet with one of Shiite Islam’s top spiritual leaders to discuss the crackdown on Shiite protesters in the Gulf nation of Bahrain.

The Turkish premier will also appeal for more help from Baghdad in combatting Kurdish rebels seeking greater rights in Turkey and operate from safe havens in the north of Iraq.

And that’s not only because Finland is seismically stable.

The 1,600-megawatt European Pressurized Reactor projected to come online in 2013 in Olkiluoto, 195 miles (315 kilometers) northwest of Helsinki, is the first of its kind expected to begin operating after the Japanese disaster.

Modeled after gyms, TechShop is attracting members who pay as little as $100 a month to use industrial strength equipment to invent whatever they can imagine.

“Everybody on the planet has ideas for things they want to make,” says TechShop founder Jim Newton, who wants to bring TechShops to cities across the country.

“I need to get back to basics. I’m gonna become Mr. October.”

“Yeah, I love that.”

This time, though, the competition from other devices is tougher.

The handheld 3DS, which goes on sale in the U.S. on Sunday for $250, lets users play 3-D games without wearing special glasses. It also takes 3-D photos. This summer, the 3DS will play 3-D movies streamed from Netflix on its 3.5-inch screen.

The government is projecting a slight cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security benefits next year, the first increase since 2009. But for most beneficiaries, rising Medicare premiums threaten to wipe out any increase in payments, leaving them without a raise for a third straight year.

About 45 million people – 1 in 7 in the country – receive both Medicare and Social Security. By law, beneficiaries have their Medicare Part B premiums, which cover doctor visits, deducted from their Social Security payments each month.

Cactoblastis cactorum, a tan-colored moth from Argentina, has been moving steadily across the Gulf Coast for the past decade. The moth lays its eggs in prickly pear cacti, which its larvae then infest. They’ll eat through the pads of the fruit-bearing plant worth hundreds of millions of dollars because of its use in Mexican cooking.

Cactus Canal now marks the western boundary of the moth’s new habitat, and federal workers hope to stop it before it gets to Texas and the population explodes with an abundant food supply.

Central Bank Governor Abdul Qadir Fitrat told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Sunday, “We have not decided anything with regard to Kabul Bank yet. Kabul Bank is still under control of the central bank and under conservatorship.”

Last month the International Monetary Fund recommended that Kabul Bank be placed into receivership and then quickly sold off as part of a broader effort to stabilize the country’s shaky financial system. U.S. Treasury Department officials agreed with the recommendation.

In the weeks ahead, car buyers will have difficulty finding the model they want in certain colors, thousands of auto plant workers will likely be told to stay home, and companies such as Toyota, Honda and others will lose billions of dollars in revenue. More than two weeks since the natural disaster, inventories of crucial car supplies – from computer chips to paint pigments – are dwindling fast as Japanese factories that make them struggle to restart.

Because parts and supplies are shipped by slow-moving boats, the real drop-off has yet to be felt by factories in the U.S., Europe and Asia. That will come by the middle of April.

The tentative $132.5 billion plan would reduce state spending by more than 2 percent and would address a $10 billion deficit. Cuomo’s first budget has no tax increases or substantial borrowing and rejects the Assembly’s proposal for a “millionaire’s tax” to ease cuts.

The plan stands a chance to be finalized by legislators this week, in time for the Friday deadline, when the state fiscal year begins. New York lawmakers routinely miss the budget deadline. The last early budget was in 1983, when Mario Cuomo was in his first term.

The misplaced confidence displayed by Tokyo Electric Power Co. was prompted by a series of overly optimistic assumptions that concluded the Earth couldn’t possibly release the level of fury it did two weeks ago, pushing the six-reactor Fukushima Dai-ichi complex to the brink of multiple meltdowns.

Instead of the reactors staying dry, as contemplated under the power company’s worst-case scenario, the plant was overrun by a torrent of water much higher and stronger than the utility argued could occur, according to an AP analysis of records, documents and statements from researchers, the utility and the Japan’s national nuclear safety agency.

A heavy bombardment of Tripoli also began after nightfall, with at least nine loud explosions and anti-aircraft fire heard, an Associated Press reporter in the city said.

Earlier in the day, rebels regained two key oil complexes along the coastal highway that runs from the opposition-held eastern half of the country toward Sirte and beyond that, to the capital. Moving quickly westward, the advance retraced their steps in the first rebel march toward the capital. But this time, the world’s most powerful air forces have eased the way by pounding Gadhafi’s military assets for the past week.

None of that prepared her for the jobs she’s had since she moved to the United States: Sales clerk. Babysitter. Medical assistant.

That last one definitely rubbed raw at times.

Brown was joined on Saturday by other top economic policymakers in his call for a transformation of the G-20 to help it remain relevant in a global economy torn by clashing national interests – although their focus differed somewhat from his.

To tackle high unemployment in poor and rich nations and a lack of economic growth in Europe and the United States, politicians need to look beyond merely reducing deficits, Brown said.

Uproar was swift and furious when Walker unveiled his plan to take away nearly all public employee collective bargaining rights, drawing tens of thousands of protesters to the Capitol and sending Senate Democrats running away from it to stall further action.

Delayed but not deterred, GOP leaders found a legislative workaround and passed the measure without even needing the Democrats to be in the state. The move brought quick court action, and a temporary restraining order meant to stop the plan from becoming law while a judge decides whether steps taken to get it approved were legal.

Political change may be remaking Egypt, but “we trust in God that the bread’s going to stay cheap,” said Shadia Abdul Halim, 45, a mother of six patiently queued up to buy.

Bread has stayed cheap even as Egypt’s other food prices leaped upward by 17 percent last year – cheap because the government pays for most of it.

His house destroyed, rice farmer Shinichi Shibasaki lives on a square of blue tarp on the top floor of a farming cooperative office with others like him. He has one set of soiled clothes. But all he can think about is getting back to work.

“If we start washing the soil out now, we can start growing our rice seedlings at the end of April at a different location, and plant them here a month later,” the 59-year-old farmer said.

The upheaval sweeping the region definitively took root in Syria as an eight-day uprising centered on a rural southern town dramatically expanded into protests by tens of thousands in multiple cities. The once-unimaginable scenario posed the biggest challenge in decades to Syria’s iron-fisted rule.

Protesters wept over the bloodied bodies of slain comrades and massive crowds chanted anti-government slogans, then fled as gunfire erupted, according to footage posted online. Security forces shot to death more than 15 people in at least six cities and villages, including a suburb of the capital, Damascus, witnesses told The Associated Press. Their accounts could not be independently confirmed.