The dollar rose to a 4-1/2-year high against the yen and a near three-year peak against a currency basket on Wednesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke stoked speculation the U.S. central bank could slow its asset buying in coming months.

Bernanke, in testimony to Congress, said the Fed's massive bond-buying program would remain in place for now. But he added if economic improvement continued, the Fed could "in the next few meetings take a step down" in its purchases and warned that holding interest rates too low for too long has its risks.

The dollar initially sold off after Bernanke said monetary stimulus is helping the U.S. economy recover and it was too soon to remove existing measures. It then rebounded and surged to the day's highs as traders focused on the possibility of the Fed reducing its bond buying later this year.

Plans for a Dubai-style man-made island created off the coast of Barcelona, featuring Europe's tallest hotel have provoked dismay in the Catalan city.

 The artificial island would be reached by a walkway from the mainland where a 984ft Space Hotel equipped with a vertical wind tunnel and the world's first zero-gravity spa will provide an "other worldly experience for guests wishing to travel to distant galaxies".

A multinational consortium led by US-based Mobilona unveiled its ambitious project last week when it lodged a request for planning permission with Barcelona City Hall.

With an initial investment of 1.5 billion euros, the hotel complex will also include a 24 hour shopping mall, a marina capable of mooring yachts up to 656 feet in length, and private apartments, some of which will be available on a "timeshare" system of 20,000 euros for an annual one-week occupancy right.

Rooms at the 2,000 suite hotel will range from 300 euros to 1,500 euros per night while the six-storey private penthouse mansion with infinity pool, optional helipad and mooring for a superyacht comes with a 70 million euro price tag.

The plans however have already been dismissed by Barcelona's mayor as "not in keeping" with his vision for Barcelona.

 "We have no need or desire to take on projects of this nature," Xavier Trias, the mayor from Catalonia's centre-right nationalist CiU party, said in an interview with the Catalan news channel 3/24, while admitting the City Hall will give the proposal due consideration.

"We are a city of culture, knowledge, of creativity, and of innovation, and our project (for the city) will follow a different path."

"We have no intention of turning Barcelona into a spectacle," he added. 

Ryanair reported record profits Monday as Europe's largest budget airline relentlessly expanded its route network across the continent and into North Africa.

The Dublin-based carrier's share price also surged to an all-time high after it predicted it would enjoy similar, if not better, earnings in the coming year, AP reports.

The company's net profit in the 12 months through March rose 13 percent to 569.3 million euros ($729 million), eclipsing last year's record. The airline, famous for its extra charges on everything from boarding cards to assigned seats, has thrived against higher-cost rivals amid recession and the eurozone debt crisis.

Sales rose 13 percent to 4.9 billion euros for the fiscal year ending in March. This reflects a 6 percent rise in average ticket prices and 217 new routes, taking Ryanair's network to more than 1,600. During the year, Ryanair opened up new bases in Croatia, Greece, Morocco, the Netherlands and Poland.

Ryanair carried 79.3 million passengers, up 5 percent, and continued to sell on average 82 percent of its seats. It expects to carry 81.5 million customers in the 2013-14 fiscal year.

Shares in Ryanair rose 6 percent to 6.72 euros on the Irish Stock Exchange, nearly 50 percent higher than its price a year ago.

Analysts welcomed confirmation that Ryanair has secured 90 percent of its 2013-14 fuel needs at an average cost of $98 per barrel, close to the current market price.

Fuel represents Ryanair's biggest expense and, if not hedged against, is its most unpredictable threat to future profitability. Ryanair said its fuel costs rose 18 percent in 2012-13 to 1.89 billion euros, or 45 percent of total company expenses.

Ryanair offered an upbeat outlook, predicting a further increase in its net profits over the next 12 months despite recession across much of Europe. It forecast a profit in the range of 570 million euros to 600 million euros for the year ending in March 2014, making it far and away the best-performing airline in Europe.

Its network is expected to keep growing as quickly as its fleet of Boeing 737-800s expands. Ryanair already operates 305 aircraft, and in March ordered 175 more 737-800s to be delivered from 2014 to 2018.

"Our new-route teams continue to handle more growth opportunities than our current fleet expansion allows. Significant opportunities are opening up in Germany, Scandinavia and central Europe in particular, where Air Berlin, SAS and LOT continue to restructure," Chief Executive Michael O'Leary said in a statement. 

David Karp, the 26-year-old founder of blogging site Tumblr, has just made to make a lot of money  - almost in spite of himself.

Yahoo's board of directors agreed on Sunday to buy his wildly popular blogging platform, which boasts 100million users and 90million posts per day, for $1.1billion cash.

The deal could make the native New Yorker the latest 20-something tech billionaire, even though he was publicly opposed, even just last year, to selling the company he founded out of his mother's small Manhattan apartment in 2007.

On Sunday afternoon, it was revealed Yahoo's board approved the purchase of Tumblr, despite its revenue of only $13million last year. Even that figure was only made possible after $125million in capital investments.

Tech news site AllThingsD reports that new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer wanted to quickly snatch up Tumbler as 'the stake in the ground of what her strategy is going forward for Yahoo.'

Tumblr, which is a mico-blogging platform for quickly posting pictures, text and video, also functions as a social media site.

Its platform manages to blend elements of all of the major social networking sites. Sharing and posting photos and simple and easy, like Instagram. Gifs moving images, pictures, and videos are all easy to share. But, users follow other Tumblr blogs and compile news feeds, making the site similar to Facebook and Twitter.

The easy, simple layout of Tumblr blogs has spawned diverse, quirky, blogs. An enormously popular Tumblr called '#whatshouldwecallme' features a series of animated gifs explaining the reactions to daily life of a 20-something woman.

However, celebrities like Joe Jonas and Lady GaGa also have popular Tumblr pages and companies like the shoemaker Col Haan use the site as a creative way to market their products.

Tumblr is also popular with many pornstars and features numerous sexually-explicit blogs.

Tumblr boasts remarkable loyalty among its users. Some 85percent of Tumblr users make 20 or more posts a month.