AFP

A new entrant in the space tourism market promises customers views of the Earth’s curvature from the comfort of a luxury cabin, lifted to the upper atmosphere with a giant balloon.

Space Perspective on Tuesday revealed illustrations of its swish cabins, which it hopes to start launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida from late 2024. More than 600 tickets have so far been sold, at $125,000 each.

With five-feet (1.5 meter) high windows, deep seats, dark, purple tones and subdued lighting, the atmosphere contrasts with the white and sanitized capsules of its competitors.

Wifi connectivity and a drinks bar round out the “Space Lounge” inside the company’s Neptune capsule.

Whether it really constitutes spaceflight is a matter of debate. 

The balloon reaches an altitude of 20 miles (30 kilometers), much lower than rivals Virgin Galactic, which goes just over 50 miles high, or Blue Origin, which breaches the Karman Line, 62 miles above sea level, the internationally-recognized space border.

SpaceX Crew Dragons fly even deeper into space.

But 20 miles is still far higher than commercial planes, which ascend around six miles high.

“We are above 99 percent of Earth’s atmosphere,” co-founder Jayne Poynter told AFP, meaning passengers will really see the inky black of space.

There’s no special training required. The balloon climbs at a serene 12 miles per hour (19 kilometers per hour), and the company pitches itself as a greener, zero-emissions alternative to rocket fuels.

They intend to get the hydrogen for the balloon from renewable sources, rather than extracting it from fossil fuels.

The price for the two-hour-up, two-hours-gliding, and two-hour-down voyage, which ends with an ocean splashdown, is significantly less than Virgin Galactic tickets that cost $450,000 for a ride on a spaceplane.

Blue Origin doesn’t disclose its prices but they are thought to be far more, while four entrepreneurs who flew to the International Space Station on a SpaceX ship paid a reported $55 million each to the company Axiom Space for the privilege.

“We wanted to find a way that really changed the way people think about spaceflight that makes it much more approachable and accessible,” said Poynter.

One thing the passengers won’t experience is feelings of weightlessness.

With Virgin’s spaceplane and Blue Origin’s rocket, passengers can unbuckle and float when the rocket engines are cut but the ship keeps coasting upwards for a few minutes, before gravity pulls it back down.

Passengers on SpaceX spaceships and those on the ISS likewise experience apparent weightlessness because the vessels are orbiting the Earth.

Space Perspective plans 25 flights in its first year, with all seats now booked.

Shares in the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority rose nearly 16 percent on Tuesday in the Gulf region’s biggest initial public offering since Saudi oil giant Aramco in 2019.

DEWA shares soared 19 percent in the first minutes of trading before closing up 15.72 percent at 2.87 dirhams ($0.78), as the Dubai stock exchange was down 0.5 percent. 

The Dubai-owned utility last week said it had raised 22.3 billion dirhams ($6.1 billion) in the Gulf’s largest IPO since Aramco’s world-record flotation.

Some nine billion shares, an 18 percent stake, were listed, with the initial price set at 2.48 dirhams ($0.68). 

The deal, in which more than 65,000 institutional and retail investors participated, values the company at 124 billion dirhams ($33.9 billion), the company said. 

The record for the largest public listing in the Gulf, and in the world, is held by Aramco, which raised $29.4 billion by listing a 1.7 percent stake on the Saudi Stock Exchange in December 2019.

The emirate of Dubai, which lacks the large oil reserves boasted by some of its neighbours, has diversified its economy by focusing on finance, tourism and trade.

But it is facing increased competition in the region, notably from Saudi Arabia, which is also seeking to reduce its dependence on oil and gas. 

European stocks sank Tuesday as investors awaited the latest reading on rampant US inflation.

Most Asian indices also fell after a weak overnight lead from Wall Street with all eyes on surging prices in the world’s biggest economy that have been fuelled by fallout from the Ukraine war.

Approaching the half-way stage, Frankfurt’s DAX index slid 1.0 percent, London shed 0.4 percent and Paris dropped 0.8 percent.

Oil prices rebounded from much of Monday’s sharp losses, as concerns subsided over weaker Chinese demand after Shanghai eased Covid restrictions.

The dollar remained elevated versus the yen, one day after hitting a 2015 high at 125.77 yen on expectations of tightening US monetary policy.

That was not far from the greenback’s two-decade peak of 125.86 yen.

– ‘Feeling the heat’ –

“Investors feel the heat before today’s inflation print,” said Swissquote analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya.

Economists predict US inflation will soar in March to nearly 8.5 percent, which would be the highest since late 1981.

Inflation had already spiked to 7.9 percent over the 12 months to February, the biggest increase in 40 years.

A fresh inflation surge could spur the US Federal Reserve into aggressive interest rate hikes.

That would in turn weigh on investor sentiment and overall activity in the world’s biggest economy.

– ‘Hotter than hot’ –

“It’s not really about the level of inflation anymore, as it has been well broadcast that CPI is hotter than hot,” said Matt Simpson, senior market analyst at City Index.

“The big question is how long it takes to come back down and whether the Fed will tip the US into a recession in doing so.”

Elsewhere Tuesday, bitcoin crept back above $40,000 on strengthening demand for the world’s most popular virtual unit following recent heavy losses.

– Key figures around 1130 GMT –

London – FTSE 100: DOWN 0.4 percent at 7,586.40 points

Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 0.8 percent at 6,504.87

Frankfurt – DAX: DOWN 1.0 percent at 14,050.44

EURO STOXX 50: DOWN 0.7 percent at 3,813.76

Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 1.81 percent at 26,334.98 (close)

Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 0.52 percent at 21,319.13 (close)

Shanghai – Composite: UP 1.46 percent at 3,213.33 (close)

New York – Dow: DOWN 1.19 percent at 34,308.08 (close)

Brent North Sea crude: UP 3.4 percent at $101.81 per barrel

West Texas Intermediate: UP 3.3 percent at $97.43

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.0863 from $1.0884 late Monday

Dollar/yen: UP at 125.66 yen from 125.37 yen

Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.2999 from $1.3030

Euro/pound: UP at 83.57 pence from 83.53 pence

burs-rfj/bcp/lth

Sri Lanka announced a default on its $51 billion foreign debt Tuesday as the island nation grapples with its worst economic crisis in memory and escalating protests demanding the government’s resignation.

Acute food and fuel shortages, as well as long daily electricity blackouts, have brought widespread suffering to the country’s 22 million people in the most painful downturn since independence in 1948.

The government has struggled to service foreign loans and Tuesday’s decision comes ahead of negotiations for an International Monetary Fund bailout aimed at preventing a more catastrophic hard default that would see Sri Lanka completely repudiate its debts.

“We have lost the ability to repay foreign debt,” Sri Lanka’s Central Bank governor Nandalal Weerasinghe told reporters in Colombo.

“This is a pre-emptive negotiated default. We have announced (it) to the creditors.”

Officials say the move will free up foreign currency to finance desperately needed food, fuel and medicine imports after months of scarce supplies. 

Just under half of Sri Lanka’s debt is market borrowings through international sovereign bonds, including one worth $1 billion that was maturing on July 25. 

China is Sri Lanka’s largest bilateral lender and owns about 10 percent of the island’s foreign debt, followed by Japan and India.

The government has borrowed heavily from Beijing since 2005 for infrastructure projects, many of which became white elephants. 

Sri Lanka also leased its strategic Hambantota port to a Chinese company in 2017 after it became unable to service the $1.4 billion debt from Beijing used to build it.

This sparked concerns from Western countries and neighbour India that the strategically located South Asian nation was falling victim to a debt trap.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Tuesday’s default would not stop Beijing from lending support to Sri Lanka’s beleaguered economy.

“China has always done its best in providing assistance to Sri Lanka’s economic and social development. We will continue to do so in the future,” he said.

– ‘Frightened of the future’ –

Sri Lanka’s snowballing economic crisis began to be felt after the coronavirus pandemic torpedoed vital revenue from tourism and remittances. 

The government imposed a wide import ban to conserve dwindling foreign currency reserves and use them to service the debts it has now defaulted on.

But the resulting shortages have stoked public anger. At least eight people have died while waiting in fuel queues since March 20 with two of the deaths reported on Monday.

“It’s been depressing to be so frightened of the future and where it’s going,” protester Vasi Samudra Devi told AFP at an anti-government rally in Colombo Monday.

“There are already people who are suffering… We are all here because we are being affected by the economic problems.”

Crowds have attempted to storm the homes of government leaders and security forces have dispersed protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets. 

Thousands of people were camped outside President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s seafront office in the capital Colombo in the fourth straight day of protests calling for him to step down.

Economists say the crisis has been made worse by government mismanagement, years of accumulated borrowing and ill-advised tax cuts.

International rating agencies also downgraded Sri Lanka last year, effectively blocking the country from accessing foreign capital markets to raise new loans.

– ‘Last resort’ –

Sri Lanka’s finance ministry said Tuesday’s default was “a last resort in order to prevent further deterioration of the republic’s financial position”.

Creditors were free to capitalise any interest payments due to them or opt for payback in Sri Lankan rupees, the ministry added.

The government is seeking around $3 billion in IMF support over the next three years to revive the economy, finance minister Ali Sabry told parliament on Friday. 

Ministry officials told AFP last week the government was preparing a programme for sovereign bond holders and other creditors to take a haircut and avoid a hard default.

Sri Lanka had sought debt relief from India and China this year, but both countries instead offered more credit lines to buy commodities from them.

Estimates showed Sri Lanka needed $7 billion to service its debt load this year, against just $1.9 billion in reserves at the end of March. 

US government data will on Tuesday likely confirm what many Americans already suspected: prices continued to rise at record rates last month, continuing a phenomenon that began last year but which has been exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Labor Department’s consumer price index (CPI) report for March will be the first to fully encompass the shock caused by the war in Ukraine and the Western sanctions against Moscow, and is almost certain to show a spike in prices for gasoline and other petroleum products.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has definitely added upside risks to US inflation through channels such as energy, food and also elevated risks of supply bottlenecks lingering for longer,” Pooja Sriram of Barclays said.

Americans have been weathering steadily accelerating price increases that hit 7.9 percent over the 12 months to February, a rate not seen in four decades.

But as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates, some economists believe the report will also mark the peak of the inflation wave that began last year as the economy recovered from Covid-19 — though it could be a while before consumers feel relief.

“The subsequent slowing may not be meaningful given all the supply restrictions on products from Russia and Ukraine as well as the growing supply chain bottlenecks on finished goods from China due to the Covid lockdowns there,” Karl Haeling of LBBW said.

The inflation wave has become a political liability for President Joe Biden, and before the data’s release, the White House temporarily waived a seasonal ban on sales of E15 gasoline, which is cheaper but usually not allowed to be sold during the summer.

But that won’t stop the Labor Department from reporting another sky-high year-on-year inflation number in March that analysts believe could hit somewhere around 8.5 percent.

– Nearing the peak? –

After years of muted price pressures, inflation began climbing as the economy recovered a year ago, driven by the Fed’s pandemic-era easy money policies, global shortages of components and delays in shipping, and government stimulus packages that fattened Americans’ wallets and drove up demand.

The consensus among economists is for CPI to accelerate by 1.2 percent in March compared to February, but for “core” CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, to rise by 0.5 percent in March, the same as the month prior.

Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics predicted “this will be the peak” of the annual increases — but only because future reports will be compared to months in 2021 when prices were already climbing.

Gasoline will play a big role in March’s price gains, Shepherdson said, adding 0.7 percent to the monthly figure overall. Food prices also rose in the month, he said, as did hotel prices and airfares, though prices for scarce used cars may decline after recent surges.

– Hitting demand –

While analysts are skeptical that the White House’s moves to cut pump prices will be effective, a recent decline in global oil prices may ultimately take some pressure off Americans.

Meanwhile, the Fed is moving to tighten lending conditions to stop inflation, though whether they can do so without causing a recession is an open question.

The central bank hiked interest rates a quarter-point higher from zero last month, and are widely expected to raise them by a half-point next month, and continue increasing throughout this year.

“There is no road map for what the Fed is trying to accomplish except in world (with) supply constraints,” Grant Thornton economist Diane Swonk warned on Twitter. 

The “Fed needs to hit demand. Hard. Very hard,” she wrote.

Most Asian and European markets were down Tuesday, after a weak lead from Wall Street and with all eyes on key US inflation data due later in the trading day.

Tokyo closed down by nearly two percent, though Hong Kong was up more than one percent by the end of trade.

Shanghai also posted gains, while Seoul, Taipei, Sydney and Singapore were all in the red. Jakarta eked out small gains.

In Europe, London dipped 0.8 percent at the open, while Paris and Frankfurt were both down by just under two percent.

This followed a weak Monday performance from Wall Street and Europe, with sentiment souring on flat UK economic growth and expectations for another strong US inflation report, which will likely bring aggressive interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.

The government is set to release the US consumer price index (CPI) for March on Tuesday, after inflation rose 7.9 percent over the 12 months to February, the biggest increase in 40 years.

Calling it the “Putin price hike” in reference to the economic ramifications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters: “We expect March headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated.”

Economists are expecting annual US inflation to spike to nearly 8.5 percent, which would be the highest since late 1981.

“It’s not really about the level of inflation anymore, as it has been well broadcast that CPI is hotter than hot,” said Matt Simpson, senior market analyst at City Index. “The big question is how long it takes to come back down and whether the Fed will tip the US into a recession in doing so.”

“What we’re faced with this year is stagflation,” Kathryn Rooney Vera, head of global macro research at Bulltick LLC, told Bloomberg Television. 

“It’s a very complicated environment that the Fed has found itself in”, and the market is pricing in potentially 50 basis points of hikes at each of the next two policy meetings, she added.

US Treasuries declined, taking the 10-year yield past 2.80 percent.

All those concerns were weighing on the Tokyo market, Okasan Online Securities said in a note.

“Investors will then likely refrain from making major moves ahead of the release of the March US consumer prices data later in the day. The market will likely lose a sense of clear direction” until the data’s release, the brokerage said.

“The Chinese government gave out its first online game approvals in months,” noted Jeffrey Halley, senior markets analyst at OANDA, in relation to the gains in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

The approvals were for the first batch of new video game licences since July, a step that could ease some of the worst concerns about Beijing’s gaming-sector curbs.

But “sentiment hasn’t been helped by the latest Covid extended lockdown measures being initiated by Chinese authorities in Shanghai in what is likely to be a fruitless attempt to stem the spread of the more contagious Omicron variant”, said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK.

Oil steadied, with Brent crude back just over $100 a barrel, after a tumble that erased most of the commodity’s gains sparked by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management attributed the rise to a partial lifting of restrictions in Shanghai “easing concerns around Chinese oil demand”.

He added: “Sort of the light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel trade, but oil bulls have fingers crossed that light isn’t a Chinese Covid freight train at the other end of the tunnel.”

– Key figures around 0810 GMT –

Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 1.81 percent at 26,334.98 (close)

Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 0.52 percent at 21,319.13 (close)

Shanghai – Composite: UP 1.46 percent at 3,213.33 (close)

London – FTSE 100: DOWN 0.81 percent at 7,556.88

Brent North Sea crude: UP 2.42 percent at $100.86 per barrel

West Texas Intermediate: UP 2.53 percent at $96.68 per barrel

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.0864 from $1.0871

Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3006 from $1.3021

Euro/pound: UP at 83.53 pence from 83.49 pence

Dollar/yen: UP at 125.61 yen from 125.40

New York – Dow: DOWN 1.19 percent at 34,308.08 (close)

— Bloomberg News contributed to this report —