Planet Business

A roundup of the world's business news in brief

THE NUMBERS

11 cent

- as of this week, the cost of sending a text message from another EU state cannot exceed this sum(plus VAT) under new EU rules, making those gloating “wish you were here” texts a lot cheaper to send.

350

- number of Irish-made products removed fromthe shelves of some Tesco stores as the company removed 3,000 “slowsellers” to make way for 7,000 new, mostly UK-sourced ones.

40,000

- number ofmembers that the VHI lost in the first quarter of 2009, according to the State-owned insurer,which is blaming lower incomes and job losses.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK I

“I live in a tormented state now, knowing of all the pain and suffering that I have created.”

- Bernard Madoff apologises to the victims of his Ponzi scheme shortly before a federal judge sentences him to 150 years in prison.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK II

“The man who committed this horrible fraud is not the man whom I have known for all these years.”

- RuthMadoff distances herself fromher husband’s crime in her first statement since his arrest, saying she feels “embarrassed and ashamed”.

GOOD WEEK

Steve Jobs

Just two months after a liver transplant, Apple’s co-founder and chief executive has officially returned to work, to the delight of Silicon Valley and Apple watchers everywhere. But although shareholders took the news as evidence that Jobs’s health had stabilised, corporate governance experts continued tomutter about Apple’s scant updates on his condition and the nature of his role now that he’s back at the corporate campus.

Air New Zealand

Always a tricky task, the recession-scarred airline has decided to combine its inflight safety video with some cheeky advertising. In the “Bare Essentials of Safety”, which premiered onboard its aircraft this week, the instructions for all that bracing, blowing and hoping will be given by employees who are nude except for body painted uniforms and the odd strategically placed seatbelt. The comically disappointing TV ad version, called “Nothing to Hide”, is available on YouTube.

BAD WEEK

California

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been forced to declare a fiscal emergency in the US state to address a budget deficit of some $24.3 billion (€17.2 billion) after legislators failed to agree on how to balance its books. The deficit was high enough to force the world’s eighth-largest economy to announce that it will close state offices on the first, second and third Friday of every month for the next year,while the state is also reported to be on the brink of issuing IOUs to its contractors.

Soaps

Crabtree & Evelyn, purveyor of such items as Mango and Grapefruit Body Butter, Purifying Eucalyptus Aromatherapy Oil and the Revitalising Mineral Muscle Soak, has found that in a recession consumers favour amore natural body odour, not to mention showing distinctly less enthusiasm for 60-second manicure sets and scented candles. The US unit of the British company has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy, becoming the latest retailer to fall victim to a slump in sales.