Recent market volatility, sparked in part by speculation that the Federal Reserve will taper its asset-buying programme 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. The Bank of Japan also 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 stockmarket index saw another broad sell-off, falling by 6.4% on June 13th. Hellenic misery Greece's privatisation programme 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 organisation would resume service within weeks. Meanwhile, Greece was downgraded from a developed country to an emerging market in an index compiled by MSCI, a provider of investment data. Standard & Poor's raised its long-term outlook on the American economy from negative to stable, but kept its credit rating unchanged at AA+. S&P's downgrade of America's AAA status in August 2011 unsettled the markets. It is more optimistic now about America's prospects, though it still bemoans the "lesser ability of elected officials to react swiftly" to curtail debt. Barack Obama nominated Jason Furman as chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers. He replaces Alan Krueger, who is returning to Princeton. Mr Furman has wide-ranging experience but is an unusual choice to head the CEA, since he does not hold an academic position. 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. Location, location, location Google bought Waze, an Israeli developer of a popular 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% below the IPO price of $38 in May 2012. Mr 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% 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. Mr Murdock, who dropped out of high school when he was 14, took over Dole's parent company in 1985. Overtired, and overdrawn A German labour tribunal ruled that a bank supervisor was unfairly sacked for a blunder made by a junior colleague. The sausage- fingered worker briefly fell asleep on his keyboard while processing a €64 ($85) debit from an account, repeatedly pressing the number 2 and transferring €222m instead. The bank spotted the error before the account-holder noticed.