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Ryanair has followed up its pledge to "not unnecessarily piss people off" by trimming some of its most excessive charges, this consists of baggage fees and penalties for not printing a boarding pass. The initial actual measures announced from the time when chief executive Michael O'Leary completed a Damascene change to better customer service will also comprise more tolerance of slight booking errors, less irritating announcements onboard and permitting passengers a second small piece of hand luggage with them on the plane. Ryanair said that, after extensive customer feedback on its website, it would introduce several improvements over the next six months.

"It will be very painful and even feel like cutting one's wrist." So predicted Li Keqiang, China's premier, as he discussed the task ahead of him during his first press conference last March. Not the most inviting prospect for investors looking to make a play on China. But they should certainly take heed of these words. Li is the man who, together with president Xi Jinping, must lead a reform programme regarded by analysts as the most fundamental in decades. It will affect almost every part of an economy worth $9.4tn (Britain's annual output, for comparison, is $2.4tn). So what are these reforms? And why does China's new leader think that their implementation will be so painful? There are three key areas which investors should note.

Spain's economic crisis, the government's response to it, and pervasive corruption have inspired a flowering of the black market economy. FORTUNE -- Outside the front door of an IKEA in the Barcelona suburb of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, a group of men -- mostly immigrants from Ecuador -- offer shoppers informal delivery services. In Spain's crisis economy, it's a competitive business -- to cut down on conflict, the drivers pick numbered balls to set a queue -- and with some negotiating, a shopper can get immediate delivery for less than what IKEA's official drivers charge.

By Maria Gallucci - Global economic growth is expected to dip this year, following the fiercely cold winter that plagued the United States and turbulence in Ukraine and the world's financial markets. The World Bank on Tuesday said it reduced its global growth forecast to 2.8 percent this year, down from a January projection of 3.2 percent, Bloomberg News reported. The U.S. forecast was cut to 2.1 percent from 2.8 percent, and outlooks for Brazil, Russia, India and China also fell -- a sign that emerging economies aren't moving fast enough or investing sufficiently in domestic structural reforms, which are needed to accelerate economic expansion, according to the Washington-based institution. It recommended smaller budget deficits, higher interest rates and productivity-boosting measures to stave off future financial unrest, Bloomberg said. The growth setbacks, however, might be short-lived. The 2015 projection for global economic growth held steady at 3.4 percent, Bloomberg noted, and growth is expected to regain speed this year despite earlier weaknesses, the World Bank said in its Global Economic Prospects report. "The financial health of economies has improved. ... But we are not totally out of the woods yet," Kaushik Basu, the lender's chief economist, said. "A gradual tightening of fiscal policy and structural reforms are desirable to restore fiscal space depleted by the 2008 financial crisis. In brief, now is the time to prepare for the next crisis."