THE MARKETS

One of the country's busiest shopping streets has been closed as a man wearing gas canisters stormed into an office and threatened to blow himself up, it was reported. Tottenham Court Road in central London was closed after police received emergency calls at midday. Scotland Yard sent a hostage negotiator to the scene amid reports the man had held people hostage inside the building several floors up. Pictures emerged of computer and office equipment being thrown through one of the office windows. A police spokesman said it was "too early to say if the suspect was armed or indeed had taken any hostages" but businesses and nearby buildings were evacuated. Joaqam Ramus, who works at nearby Cafe Fresco, said before being evacuated: "There was talk of a bomb and somebody having a hostage in a building. "All Tottenham Court Road is closed and so are we - the police told us to shut. "We don't know what it is but it seems someone has a hostage."

Three men have been arrested and 36 criminal websites selling credit card information and other personal data shut down as part of a two-year international anti-fraud operation, police have confirmed. The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), working with the FBI and US Department of Justice, as well as authorities in Germany; the Netherlands; Ukraine; Australia and Romania, swooped after identifying the sites as specialising in selling card and bank details in bulk. The move comes as a blow to what is a growing black market for stolen financial data. Detectives estimated that the card information seized could have been used to extract more than £500m in total by fraudsters. SOCA claimed it has recovered more than two and a half million items of compromised personal and financial information over the past two years. “The authorities have shut down 36 websites but it is difficult to know how many other people had access to that data. They could spring back up somewhere else if a gang is not eradicated completely,” said Graham Cluley of internet security firm Sophos. He added: “This is big business and, just as in any legitimate company there are people who specialise in different things, so there are those who actually get their hands on the personal data and those who sell it on; they are not often the same person.” An investigation by The Independent last summer found that scammers were making a “comfortable living” getting their hands on sensitive information and selling it online. Card details were being offered for sale for between 4p and £60 per card – depending on the quality – according to one source in the business. Some cards would be sold with incomplete or unreliable information; others ready to use. Some of the card details for sale on the websites shut down by SOCA were being sold for as little as £2 each. Investigators said that the alleged fraudsters were using Automated Vending Carts, which allowed them to sell large quantities of stolen data. They are said to be a driver of the growth in banking fraud over the last 18 months because of the speed with which stolen data can be sold. Lee Miles, Head of Cyber Operations for SOCA said: “This operation is an excellent example of the level of international cooperation being focused on tackling online fraud. Our activities have saved business, online retailers and financial institutions potential fraud losses estimated at more than half a billion pounds, and at the same time protected thousands of individuals from the distress caused by being a victim of fraud or identity crime.” An alleged operator in Macedonia was one of those arrested, while two British men accused of buying the information were also detained. Britain’s Dedicated Cheque & Plastic Crime Unit also seized computers suspected of being used to commit fraud.

On recent campaign stops, President Obama has taken to summing up America's oil supply problem with the following statistic: We use 20 percent of the world's production, but only have 2 percent of its reserves. Then this past week, the president got pushback from Republicans, who are citing a new government study to allege we have closer to 26 percent of the world's supply. 

Who's right? Neither, really. Obama is talking about oil we know is there. Republicans are talking about oil we think is there. 

The president likes to refer to our so-called "proven" reserves -- oil that can be recovered with relative certainty given today's economic, technological, and regulatory constraints. It's oil that companies have already discovered, and that they can drill up profitably without breaking the law. Oil in areas where drilling is banned, such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, isn't included. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's most recent estimates, the United States has roughly 20 billion barrels of these reserves, around 2 percent of the global total. But proven reserves are only a small part of the petroleum picture, and don't give us a very accurate picture of future supply. 

That's where the Republican criticism comes in. This week, the U.S. Geological Survey released a study of the world's "undiscovered, technically recoverable" oil resources. It sounds complicated, but is relatively simple. It's oil we haven't actually found, but believe is there based on geological studies, and think we can get at with current drilling technology, regardless of the legal or economic issues. The new survey did not include the United States, but Republicans have combined its results with previous estimates showing we have 198 billion barrels of this kind of oil. Here's a breakdown 

By this accounting, the world has about 763 billion "undiscovered" barrels of oil, of which roughly 26 percent indeed belongs to us. These figures don't include the actual reserves currently being drilled across the globe, which are quite significant. Saudi Arabia alone has about 262 billion proven barrels available. 

Now, here's where the USGS figures really fall short: They ignore a massive chunk of the world's oil potential future resources. The study looks at conventional oil. That's regular old black gold, the kind that made Jed Clampett and that nutjob from There Will Be Blood rich. But there are many other kinds of oil, which get lumped into a category called "unconventional  oil." That includes the billions of barrels of tar sands oil in Canada, heavy oil in Venezuela, and shale oil in North Dakota.* 

So Obama's numbers almost certainly underestimate the relative size of America's potential oil supply. The Republicans may be overestimating it. Or, depending on the kinds of unconventional oil discoveries we make in the coming years, they could be massively underestimating it too. But both sides are are oversimplifying the issue. Shocking, I know. 

The future is really here, people. We already got the doors that open doing swooooosh and now we are getting asteroid miners. For real. A group of billionaires and former NASA scientists will announce the first asteroid mining company in history. The group of investors and scientists on board this enterprise is impressive: ...including Google's Larry Page & Eric Schmidt, Ph.D.; film maker & explorer James Cameron; Chairman of Intentional Software Corporation and Microsoft's former Chief Software Architect Charles Simonyi, Ph.D.; Founder of Sherpalo and Google Board of Directors founding member K. Ram Shriram; and Chairman of Hillwood and The Perot Group Ross Perot, Jr. According to Planetary Resources, the name of the company, they "add trillions of dollars to the global GDP" and "help ensure humanity's prosperity." There are no details yet, but if they are going to do it, you can be this is doable. Harnessing the resources of asteroids is not crazy proposition. And you don't have to travel to the asteroid belt to grab them. There are many passing near Earth that may be accessible. In fact, there are already plenty of plans on scientists and engineers' drafting board. Needless to say, and despite the fact that it will probably take some years to achieve their goals, this is all extremely exciting. If they are successful, this could indeed solve many of our material needs. We will be covering the press conference live. It will be held in the Museum of Flight in Seattle on Tuesday, April 24 at 10:30am PDT.

Days after being rebuked by shareholders, Citigroup Inc Chief Executive Vikram Pandit and the bank's directors have been sued for allegedly awarding outsized pay to top executives. The complaint filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court accuses directors of breaching their fiduciary duties by awarding more than $54 million of compensation in 2011 to the executives, including $15 million to Pandit, though the bank's performance did not necessarily justify it. At Citigroup's annual meeting on Tuesday, about 55 percent of shareholders participating in an advisory vote rejected Pandit's pay package. That marked the first time that investors had rejected a compensation plan at a major U.S. bank. That vote "has cast doubt on the board's decision-making process, as well as the accuracy and truthfulness of its public statements," the complaint said. "Absent this (lawsuit), the majority will of the company's stockholders shall be rendered meaningless." Spokeswomen for Citigroup did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Shareholders won the right to vote on executive pay at most public companies under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. Many analysts remained skeptical the "say on pay" votes would matter much. Richard Parsons, a Citigroup director retiring as chairman of the New York-based bank, called the rejection of Pandit's pay package a "serious matter" that the board would address. Pandit was paid a symbolic $1 in 2010 and $128,741 in 2009. He had joined Citigroup in 2007 when the bank bought his hedge fund Old Lane Partners for $800 million. Citigroup is the nation's third-largest bank by assets. Thursday's lawsuit was brought by Stanley Moskal, a Citigroup shareholder. It seeks to force Pandit, Parsons and other Citigroup directors to pay damages to the bank, and for Citigroup to bolster internal controls.

It is an open secret that the center of global economy has been moving from the West towards the East. Financial experts say that the number of money bags in South-East Asia, China and Japan has increased considerably while North American millionaires and billionaires continue to experience nothing but losses. What does the future hold for Russia? The financial situation in the East has been more of less stable. The West continues to struggle with the debt crisis and tries to rescue several countries from bankruptcy. Many may wonder, how the developing countries managed to survive the devastating storm of the world economic crisis. It would be enough to recollect the year 1997, when all Asian markets literally collapsed. Nevertheless, the Asian countries have never stopped their attempts to win foreign capital. As a result, China, India and the countries of South-East Asia rose from the ashes in nearly two years and continued their triumphant recovery. The global list of billionaires can be an example to prove the decline of investors' interest in Europe and North America. City Private Bank, which services world's wealthiest people, confirmed that the number of multimillionaires in the Asian region would continue to grow during the upcoming five years (by approximately 37%). Print version Font Size Send to friend India is said to become the major exporter of men of fortune. For the time being, India has only two dollar billionaires. Russia may also become one of the leaders of the financial race. Russia's Alisher Usmanov is not included on the list of world's 20 richest men, but Forbes has already named him Russia's richest man. North America has to move over with its 17,000 multi-millionaires: the role of developing countries in global economy continues to grow. Many Asian countries will have to turn to Russia to provide its growing industry with fuel. One may assume that the center of global economy will move to Asia (between India and China) by 2050. Russia will only profit from the Asian economic boom. Needless to say that the Asians have not built their economies on the patriotism of their own citizens. Asia's economic rise began during the 1980s. In Japan, for example, the economic growth began with the development of such concerns as Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Yasuda and Sumitomo. Developing countries demonstrate an impressive growth of their economies with the help of the exports of raw materials. Investors also point out the rise of financial centers in the Asian countries. The Shanghai Stock Exchange, for example, is ranked sixth in the world on the capitalization of its companies. The stock index of the exchange grew by 303% after the international financial crisis. One should also take account of the huge markets of those countries and their contribution to the IPO. Local companies have attracted nearly $300 billion in the course of the placement of primary bonds. It is worthy of note that the BRICS countries accounted for 39 percent of that amount. Investors turn their heads to Asia and invest in China ($55 billion) and Eastern Europe ($276 billion).

Insurer Aviva is set to pull out of the US in a move that could cost the company around £1 billion, the Sunday Times reported. The newspaper said Aviva's chief executive Andrew Moss was expected to announce the sale of Aviva USA at an investor day on May 24. "The American life assurance business is likely to fetch no more than about £1 billion -- roughly half what the company paid for it six years ago," the broadsheet said. The planned sale is part of a change of strategy agreed between Moss and his incoming chairman John McFarlane, the paper added. Aviva, Britain's second biggest insurer and the sixth biggest worldwide, last month announced an 85 percent slump in annual net profits on exceptional charges and due to economic strains in Europe. The company has 36,600 employees worldwide and around 43 million customers.