Monday Business Edition

Ruling and opposition lawmakers put aside their differences in an effort to launch efforts to rebuild the country’s quake-hit northeast as quickly as possible.

But analysts warned the passing of the budget will not ease pressure on under-fire Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who has faced criticism over the government’s handling of the crisis and the subsequent nuclear emergency.

“If early estimates are confirmed, it will be a revolution like in Norway or Great Britain after the discovery of natural gas in the North Sea,” Piotr Krzywiec, a geologist at Poland’s National Institute of Geology (PIG) told AFP in a recent interview. “Poland could become Europe’s number one or one of its largest natural gas producers,” he adds.

A recent US study, however, warned that shale gas carries a greater carbon footprint than oil, coal and conventional natural gas over at least a 20-year period due to emissions of methane — a greenhouse gas — in the extraction process known as “fracking” or hydraulic fracturing.

Sony executives bowed in apology and said the company would begin restoring its shut-down PlayStation Network and Qriocity online services in the next week as it moved to improve security after the breach hit 77 million accounts.

“This criminal act against our network had a significant impact not only on our consumers, but our entire industry,” said Sony executive deputy president Kazuo Hirai.

Renewed fears of a Greek debt default will overshadow the meeting of ECB policymakers in Finland even though European Union (EU) leaders still reject speculation that financial markets now all but take for granted.

Economists expect the ECB governing council, gathering Thursday in Helsinki for one of two annual meetings away from the bank’s headquarters in Frankfurt, to hint at more rate hikes, with the first possibly as soon as June.

Unfettered of their obligations to repay state aid and riding out the expiry of government “cash-for-clunkers” schemes that initially plunged their revenue, carmakers this week gave rosy outlooks for the rest of fiscal 2011.

Germany’s Volkswagen reported a three-fold profit leap in the three months from January through March to 1.71 billion euros ($2.5 billion), selling two million cars, a new milestone for Europe’s biggest automaker.

Farmers living near the 10-square-kilometre expanse in northern China say they have lost teeth and their hair has turned white while tests show the soil and water contain high levels of cancer-causing radioactive materials.

“We are victims. The tailings dam has contaminated us,” Wang, 60, told AFP at his home near Baotou city in Inner Mongolia, home to the world’s largest deposits of rare earths, which are vital in making many high-tech products.

Tax is taboo in Pakistan. Barely one percent of the population pays at all, as a corrupt bureaucracy safeguards entrenched interests and guards private wealth, but starves energy, health and education of desperately needed funds.

Less than 10 percent of GDP comes from tax revenue — one of the lowest global rates and worse than in much of Africa, say economists.

The conversion of Subic Naval Base and Clark Air Base into tax-haven special economic zones nearly two decades ago has drawn a few thousand investors that include shipbuilders, electronic firms, airlines and tour operators.

The transition, however, has not been smooth and the vast areas, each about the size of Singapore, still do not live up to their potential with parts resembling ghost towns, officials involved in running them acknowledge.

Part investment seminar, part stand-up comedy, it is above all a festival dedicated to capitalism and the firm’s CEO, Warren Buffett.

On Saturday, as many as 40,000 Buffett groupies — many of whom became rich through the firm — packed into a cavernous stadium in the rural state of Nebraska, listening with rapt attention to the pronouncements of the “Oracle of Omaha.”

The revered magnate, who 20 years ago vowed to ruthlessly deal with staff who tarnish his firm’s reputation, told a stadium full of attentive shareholders that David Sokol had broken company rules in a share-trading scandal.

Once Buffett’s heir apparent, Sokol resigned after it emerged he bought $10 million worth of shares in chemicals firm Lubrizol before recommending Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway group snap up the company. He gained an estimated $3 million from the deal.

In 1911, a German named Oscar Troplowitz, head of pharmaceutical firm Beiersdorf, pioneered the use of the oil-in-water emulsifier “Eucerit” that proved to be an instant hit because it did not go rancid like its competitors.

He then added extract of orange, bergamot, lavender, rose, lilac and a touch of lily and christened his new invention “Nivea”, a name taken from the Latin word “niveus”, meaning snow-white.

Lamy added to the gloomy atmosphere that has prevailed in recent weeks after negotiators met at WTO headquarters in Geneva to take stock of their most recent attempts to overcome a decade of deadlock.

“My frank assessment is that under the right conditions of temperature and pressure a deal would be doable… were it not for NAMA (Non Agricultural Market Access, or industrial goods),” the WTO director general said.

The investigation focuses on Credit Default Swaps (CDS), derivative financial products traded between financial institutions or investors originally meant to protect investors in the event a company or state they have invested in defaults on payments, but also used today in speculative investment portfolios.

These products have helped push up yields when trading government bonds issued by Greece and other struggling European states.

Officials from the government, Tokyo Electric (9501.T), and creditor banks have been scrambling to craft a scheme that would allow the utility to cope with the massive bill of compensating displaced residents while staying in business as a private firm.

The plan under discussion would create a fund to provide loans for and buy preferred shares from Tokyo Electric, commonly known as Tepco. Other utilities would pay premiums as a buffer against future accidents, and Tepco would repay the fund from its profits over several years, sources with knowledge of the talks have told Reuters.

Many PlayStation users around the world were angry and frustrated that the first warning of one of the largest Internet security break-ins ever came a week after Sony detected a problem with the network on April 19.

Sony on Sunday apologized and said it would gradually restart the PlayStation Network with increased security and would offer some free content to users.

U.S. futures and securities regulators, having issued draft versions of most of the major rules required to overhaul the vast over-the-counter derivatives market, are holding a roundtable on Monday and Tuesday to hear from industry on how they should schedule the rollout of their reforms.

Bankers, exchange executives and traders have been fiercely critical of the brisk pace of reform, arguing that sloppy rules could reduce market liquidity, push more trading to unregulated markets, and ultimately lead to higher prices for consumers.

He offered those and dozens of other opinions in a wide-ranging news conference on Sunday that capped off the annual meeting weekend for Berkshire Hathaway, his ice-cream-to-insurance conglomerate.

Buffett also told Reuters Insider in an interview that none of the people on Berkshire’s secret CEO succession list know they are on the list — but the top candidate for the job will not need any convincing to take it.

In stark contrast, the fortunes of South Korea’s Hyundai Motor (005380.KS) and affiliate Kia Motors (000270.KS) brightened, as they benefited from the Japanese automakers’ woes to post double-digit growth in global sales for the month.

Sales of vehicles excluding 660cc microcars in Japan fell 51.0 percent from the year before to 108,824 units last month, with market leader Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) putting in the worst performance with a 69 percent drop.

The third round of bids is led by two competing financial groups Len Blavatnik’s Access Industry and a joint bid by Tom and Alec Gores’ Platinum Equity and Gores Group, according two people.

The Warner Music sale process is taking place against a backdrop of ongoing declines in music sales as executives struggle to figure out new business models to guarantee the future of the industry. While Warner Music continues to generate reasonable levels of cash on its balance sheet — a key metric for investors — it will still be seen as a risky investment in a very tough market.

Brazil’s central bank last week expressed growing concern about above-inflation wage deals and said interest rates will remain high for a long time to counter the inflation threat.

In the United States, meanwhile, wages have been largely stagnant due to stubbornly high unemployment. That’s one reason Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke thinks the oil-related jump in inflation will be fleeting and interest rates can stay at record lows.

Mounting fears that Greece will have to restructure a debt mountain expected to reach 340 billion euros this year, roughly one and a half times its output, have pummeled Greek bonds, driving yield spreads over German bunds to new record highs.

“For me restructuring is the only road to take, for Greece to feel some relief and for creditors to contribute to the solution of the Greek problem,” Lars Feld, one of the five “wise men” who advise the German government on economic policy, told To Vima newspaper in an interview.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, said it is probing whether major investment banks, including Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, colluded in their operations in a market that is already under scrutiny by U.S. authorities and being subjected to broad, new regulations.

Credit default swaps, or CDS, are derivatives that let a buyer transfer loan default risk to a seller, making them a kind of insurance against default. CDS can also be bought by speculators without direct interest in the debts involved.

The Treasury Department said that forcing these financial products through clearinghouses and onto exchanges was not necessary because existing procedures in the foreign exchange market mitigate risk and ensure stability.

Any disruptions to this market “could have serious negative economic consequences,” the department said.

The world’s second-largest tech company behind Apple Inc met Wall Street’s profit estimate and beat on overall sales in its earnings report on Thursday.

But investors were concerned with lower personal computer sales nagging at Windows, Xbox sales bringing down profit margins and losses in its online business.

“People thought we were crazy,” said Kerry Ryan, 52, of Cape Coral, Fla.

“They said we’d come back glowing,” 10-year-old granddaughter Isabelle Ryan added.

As more budgetary battles lie ahead, mounting frustrations over the government’s response to the tsunami and the still-unfolding nuclear crisis at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant are threatening to topple the country’s prime minister.

The 4 trillion yen budget supplement to the fiscal year that started in April was unanimously approved by parliament’s upper house budget committee Monday morning and was made into law at the chamber’s plenary session later in the day. The more powerful lower house had approved the plan Saturday.

Berkshire also doesn’t plan to change the way its managers are overseen because of the episode.

Buffett and Berkshire’s Vice Chairman Charlie Munger were asked about David Sokol’s actions Sunday at a news conference that concludes Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder events. The two also discussed the prospects for another financial crisis and the qualities of the holding company’s next CEO.

Yet people are turning over personal information to online retailers, social networks and other services in growing numbers. The point at which people lose trust in the websites they deal with appears further away than ever before, if it exists at all, as shopping, socializing and gaming online becomes deeply embedded in modern life.

People have come to accept that sharing information is the price of a meaningful, connected life online – even if they don’t like it.

“We deeply apologize for the inconvenience we have caused,” said Kazuo Hirai, chief of Sony Corp.’s PlayStation video game unit, who was among the three executives who bowed for several seconds at the company’s Tokyo headquarters in the traditional style of a Japanese apology.

Hirai said parts of the service would be back this week and that the company would beef up security measures. But he and other executives acknowledged that not enough had been done in security precautions, and promised that the company’s network services were under a basic review to prevent a recurrence.

And so instead of cooking in a restaurant or driving a tractor trailer for someone like he used to do, Bogan eats at a soup kitchen and sleeps on park benches or in a train or bus station each night. He’s one of about 500 homeless people living in the nation’s second-largest gambling market.

Reducing Atlantic City’s homeless population is a key element of a new effort to help the struggling casino resort get back on its feet after more than four years of plunging revenues, lost market share and layoffs. A state agency plans to allocate just under $100,000 to a local homeless shelter to buy bus or plane tickets back home for any homeless person who wants to leave.

Their plan, still a work in progress, would reduce borrowing by up to $4 trillion over the next decade by putting the two parties’ sacred cows on the chopping block. Republicans would have to agree to higher taxes while Democrats would have to accept cuts in popular benefit programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and maybe even Social Security.

There is urgency to their work.

The message in Manhattan – delivered with bullhorns and drums – was echoed by millions of workers around the world, from Havana to Berlin and Istanbul.

The burning issues were the same: more jobs, better working conditions, higher wages and decent health care.

Buffett assured the crowd at an Omaha convention center that Berkshire is strong enough to withstand both the David Sokol scandal and the estimated $1.7 billion in insurance losses that drove profits down 58 percent in the first quarter.

Buffett said he doesn’t think he will ever understand why Sokol bought stock in Lubrizol shortly before recommending that Berkshire buy the chemical company. Buffett said he believes Sokol clearly violated Berkshire’s ethics and insider trading policies.

The 27-year-old restaurant delivery driver shares the eight-room mud brick home with his mother and three siblings.

And then there’s the seven other families that also live there, each in one of the rooms. All of the at least 70 residents share a toilet that’s basically a hole in the ground.

The pace of closures has slowed, however, as the economy improves and banks work their way through piles of bad debt. By this time last year, regulators had closed 64 banks.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized First National Bank of Central Florida, based in Winter Park, Fla., with $352 million in assets, and Cortez Community Bank of Brooksville, Fla., with $70.9 million in assets.

Rising prices are a political threat to China’s communist leaders and they have declared taming inflation their priority. But they suffered a setback in March, when a double-digit jump in food costs pushed inflation to a 32-month high of 5.4 percent. That was despite four interest rate hikes since October, curbs on bank lending and government orders to producers to hold down price increases.

How fast to let the yuan gain is a high-stakes balancing act. A stronger yuan could help ease inflation by making oil and other imports cheaper. But Beijing also worries that a rising yuan might hurt exports and lead to job losses and unrest, so any gains will likely still be too small for Washington and other critics that say an undervalued yuan is swelling China’s trade surplus.

Casinos hoping to fill the void created by a federal crackdown are pushing louder for legalization and regulation so they can line up tens of thousands of likely regulars.

They say thousands of Americans are playing poker online despite attempts to stop them, including the federal indictments this month of Internet poker executives on money laundering and fraud charges.

The two probes home in on a market that has come under fire for lacking transparency and allegedly worsening market turmoil during the financial crisis.

While the investigations focus on competition issues, they accompany a wider regulatory crackdown in Europe and the United States on credit default swaps and other derivatives and could have implications for the broader functioning of the market. In that market, several companies control trillions of dollars of financial instruments.