Global business
The Bank of Japan rattled investors by deciding not to unleash any fresh stimulus (some small measures had been expected). Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, recently launched his "third arrow" of reforms, which received a cool response for doing little to restructure the economy. The Nikkei stock market index saw another broad sell-off, falling by 6.4 percent on Thursday.
Greece's privatization program suffered a blow when Russia's Gazprom decided not to submit a formal bid for the state-controlled gas supplier, DEPA. A day later the country's public broadcaster was unexpectedly shut down by the government, which said a new, leaner organization would resume service within weeks.
Royal Bank of Scotland announced that Stephen Hester would step down later this year as chief executive, a job he took over from Fred Goodwin when the bank was bailed out in November 2008. The British Treasury is currently mulling its options about how to dispose of the stake it still holds in RBS.
America's Energy Information Administration released an assessment of the world's shale-energy formations and estimated that there are 345 billion barrels of technically recoverable shale oil in 42 countries. Shale oil and gas are more abundant than had been thought, but the report also listed factors that may hinder extraction outside America, including lack of expertise and the absence of private land rights to spur development.
Google bought Waze, an Israeli developer of a mapping-and-traffic smartphone app. Google snapped up Waze before Apple and Facebook could get their hands on it. Last year Apple replaced Google Maps as the iPhone's default mapping service with its own version, which many users consider to be inferior.
Apple unveiled an update to its iOS platform for the iPhone and iPad as well as a new streaming radio service, both of which will be released in the autumn.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's boss, faced searching questions from investors about the dismal performance of the company's stock at its first annual shareholders meeting since going public. Facebook's share price is 40 percent below the IPO price of $38 in May 2012. Zuckerberg said he, too, was "disappointed."
Britain's Vodafone confirmed that it was interested in taking over Kabel Deutschland, Germany's biggest cable-television provider. Vodafone wants to expand its business in "triple play" packages of phone, TV and broadband.
David Murdock, the 90-year-old chairman and chief executive of Dole Foods, offered to buy out the 60 percent of the company that he does not already own. With its roots in Hawaii's pineapple farms, Dole, now based in California, is one of the world's biggest producers of fruit and vegetables. Murdock, who dropped out of school when he was 14, took over Dole's parent company in 1985.
Political economy
Recent market volatility, sparked in part by speculation that the Federal Reserve will taper its asset-buying program this year, hit emerging-market currencies. Emerging economies absorbed much of the liquidity that central banks have pumped into markets over the past few years. Now that tide is turning. This week the Indian rupee slid to a record low against the dollar, and the South African rand and the Brazilian real were at four-year lows. The Turkish lira and Mexican peso also sank.
Venezuela's election authority said that an audit of the result of the presidential election in April confirmed that Nicolas Maduro, the chosen candidate of the late Hugo Chávez, had won by 1.5 percentage points. The opposition complained that the audit was meaningless because it failed to review the voting lists and thus could not detect multiple voting.
Kinross Gold, a Canadian mining company, scrapped its development of a $1 billion gold-and-silver mine in Ecuador because of high taxes. The left-wing government of Rafael Correa is considering a cut to the royalties it levies on miners.
