Popular video-sharing website YouTube may begin charging its users for premium, “specialist” content, reported the Financial Times on Sunday, in order to help content creators develop a wider range of videos, whilst adding a second revenue stream to the digital video market leader.
The Bangladeshi government will collaborate with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on a plan to improve workers’ rights and safety, reported Bloomberg News on Sunday, after the death toll from a factory building collapse last month rose to 620 people this week.
ECB chief Mario Draghi on Thursday said it is crucial that eurozone governments do not “unravel” the progress made in reducing their borrowing cost, arguing that EU leaders must focus on structural reforms to ensure long-term growth, as the central bank cut its key interest rates for the first time in 10 months in a move aimed at boosting the ailing eurozone economy.
The ever-growing trend in Bitcoin has economists watching. Compared to gold, whose value plummeted last week, is it inevitable that Bitcoin’s value will also diminish? What would happen if Silk Road (black market where 20 percent of Bitcoin activity can be traced) were to shut down?
Bitcoins are a currency controlled by no government, no company, and no group, but rather by maths: a series of complex cryptographic calculations rule how many Bitcoins are in existence and how many are traded.
Global credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s on Thursday cut Indonesia’s debt outlook from “positive” to “stable”, arguing that recent economic reforms had lost its momentum, while a weaker external profile had reduced the chance of an upgrade over the next 12 months, reported Bloomberg.
The semi state-operated Qatar National Bank (QNB) has been named as the world’s strongest bank in Bloomberg Markets’ third annual ranking of global financial institutions, after seeing its profits rise by an average of 27 percent per annum over the last five years, thanks to strong government supervision and rapid international expansion.
China’s ambassador to the United States on Wednesday said that while Washington is concerned about stability in region, a rise in Japanese nationalism is counterproductive and hinted that Washington should not offer Japan encouragement in its disputes with China over the uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, called Senkaku by Japan and Diaoyu by China, which lie atop possibly large energy reserves.
The European Union may take trade action against Bangladesh in an attempt to force the country to take workplace safety more seriously, following last week’s factory building collapse which killed more than 400 workers and left thousands injured in Dhaka’s worst-ever industrial disaster.
The warning is the latest sign that governments and retailers are turning up the heat on Bangladesh over the high-risk workplace environment created by the country’s ultra-low wages and lack of safety regulations.
Austerity measures in Greece have severely reduced citizens’ access to jobs, health, water and energy, said a United Nations expert on Wednesday, urging the Greek government and its international bailout lenders to adopt a human rights-based approach to economic reform, amid record unemployment and reduced welfare benefits.
Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff will reattempt to pass a bill earmarking all oil royalties collected by the state to go into public education funding, reported Reuters on Wednesday, after Congress last year stalled a vote towards the initiative following threats of legal action by the nation’s main oil-producing states.
