
Rio Tinto has agreed to sell four business units of its Alcan aluminium subsidiary for 2 billion US dollars as it seeks to trim its debt burden further. The Anglo-Australian mining giant is selling the four packaging businesses to Australian group Amcor.

The row over British Member of Parliament expenses has reignited after two senior Tories called for MPs to be given massive pay rises. Sir Patrick Cormack, who was a candidate for Commons Speaker, said their salaries should be doubled - from £64,766 to more than £130,000, in return for scrapping their controversial second homes allowances

The world has begun to recover from recession but the process will not be simple, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned. The recession has left deep scars which will affect both supply and demand for many years to come according to IMF chief economist, Olivier Blanchard.

The number of British working-age adults claiming benefits is set to hit six million this month, a UK think-tank has predicted. The centre-right Policy Exchange forecast the rise using official Government figures on benefit claimants and the latest unemployment figures.

A key measure of inflation in the UK has unexpectedly remained at 1.8%. Economists had expected the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) to decline to 1.5% in July. The Retail Prices Index (RPI) inflation measure, which includes mortgage interest payments also unexpectedly increased to -1.4%, from -1.6%.

Koenigsegg Automotive, the Swedish maker of luxury 1.2-million US dollars sports cars, agreed to buy Saab Automobile from General Motors by the end of the year, potentially moving the company into the automotive mass market.

China reduced its holdings of US Treasury bills in June by the largest amount in nearly nine years in what economists viewed as a bid to diversify the country's foreign reserves and increase returns.

Spain plans to help the European Commission fend off a legal challenge by Gibraltar over a decision relating to the Rock’s territorial waters, reports the Gibraltar Chronicle. Lawyers representing the Spanish government filed an application to join the controversial case last Friday, a day after the British government confirmed that it would support Gibraltar in court.

Japan has come out of recession after recording growth of 0.9% in the April-June quarter, compared with the first. The economy had shown four consecutive quarter-on-quarter contractions.

The British Virgin Islands and the Cayman islands have joined the global “white list” of countries using internationally recognised tax standards, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said last Friday.