Breaking Finance news

Julia Gillard, Australia’s prime minister, will attempt to form a minority-led government after the ruling Labor party suffered a punishing backlash in weekend elections that paved the way for the country’s first hung parliament in seven decades

Swedish prosecutors dropped rape charges against Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks website which is embroiled in a dispute over the release of classified US war documents, hours after they had issued a warrant for his arrest.

Iran began fuelling its first nuclear power station on Saturday, in a crucial step toward activating the Russian-designed Bushehr plant on the Gulf coast

UK bank has emerged as frontrunner to buy a controlling stake in South Africa’s fourth-largest banks in a deal that could be announced as early as Monday

A late-night rush by meat slaughterhouses drove up cattle prices this week as the houses scrambled to supply beef for barbecues during the US Labor Day weekend

Australia’s parliamentary election is heading for a photo finish with final opinion polls giving Julia Gillard’s Labor government the narrowest of margins over Tony Abbott’s opposition conservative coalition

Robert Swannell, the investment banker who helped defend Marks and Spencer against a bid from Sir Philip Green, is the favourite to succeed Sir Stuart Rose as chairman of the UK retailer

Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, announces that direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks will begin in Washington next month, with the goal of resolving all major issues within one year

The rise of China and India has sparked a renewed surge in aggressive dealmaking in the resources sector, with more than $50bn in proposed take­overs this week alone

The main attraction London offers for companies going bust compared with the rest of Europe is certainty

Bradford & Bingley is alleging that anti-fraud guidelines were ignored by firms that advised on ‘same-day remortgaging’

Stop putting butter on your toast, drink coffee instead of tea and avoid fresh fish. These are not the strictures of a fad diet but the earnest counsels of the inflation doctor, keen to save people’s wallets from the ravages of higher prices

KNOC of South Korea launches a landmark £1.87bn hostile takeover offer for Dana Petroleum after shareholders owning almost half of the UK oil explorer offered their support

The US labour market remains in a slump, and factory activity is slipping, prompting a fresh sell-off of US and European stocks and further low yields for government bonds

The chief executive of PotashCorp stands to make at least $370m if BHP Billiton succeeds in taking over the company for $130 a share and possibly more if market expectations of a rising offer price prove accurate

The pass rate rose in 2010 for the 28th successive year, results showed – intensifying pressure on those seeking late university places

Oil appetite is increasingly coming from countries such as China, India, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Indonesia, changing seasonal patterns, with demand higher in Q1 than Q2 for the first time this year

Public borrowing rose less than expected in July, as corporation receipts surged in a hopeful sign that Britain’s finances can be brought under control and that the economy is recovering

Scientists say they have proved a huge plume of oil is lurking below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a remnant of the catastrophic BP oil spill that gushed nearly 5m barrels of oil into the sea

Intel, the US chipmaker, said that it would acquire McAfee, the antivirus software company, in a $7.68bn deal that will enhance its ability to combat cyber threats as it pushes deeper into mobile computing