Breaking Finance news

Amazon is aiming to take digital reading into the mainstream as it rolls out a new generation of its Kindle e-reader ahead of the crucial holiday shopping season

Bank syndicate led by RBS nears deal to provide funds for social housing maintenance company

The British PM risks opening a diplomatic rift with Pakistan by accusing Islamabad of “looking both ways” on exporting terrorism, soon after paving the way to closer nuclear and military ties with India

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has asked some members to plan what to do if a European country has to leave the euro

Lord Browne, the former BP chief executive, has sparked a furious row by calling for a review of the UK’s £4bn-a-year science budget to emphasise projects with the potential to bring short-term industrial benefits

Global Markets Overview: A recovery in risky assets is running out of steam, as optimism about stronger company earnings wanes and fears that growth may ease are on the rise

First major new piece of scientific research since the ‘climategate’ scandals

Officials have yet to approve a final list of which state assets will be sold, even though the programme was first announced close to a year ago

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is planning to raise up to Rmb45bn in a rights issue in Hong Kong and Shanghai to shore up its capital base

US files published by WikiLeaks feature a series linking Osama bin Laden to suicide bombings, a plot to assassinate President Hamid Karzai and financial dealings with North Korea

BP announces that it lost $17bn after tax in the second quarter, one of the largest losses in British corporate history, after a $32.2bn pre-tax provision for the costs of cleaning up the Gulf spill and compensating victims

Ian Norris, former head of the UK engineering group, faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine after he was found guilty of conspiring to obstruct a criminal antitrust inquiry

Billionaire investor in final talks to buy Dubai Holding’s 4 per cent stake in manager of Indian benchmark Sensex index

Protestors plan to swamp Vedanta’s annual meeting to voice complaints about what they see as the Indian miner’s persecution of a nature-worshipping tribe in India

The UK government is ‘minded’ to scrap an informal code guaranteeing public sector benefits for thousands of outsourced private sector jobs, threatening a confrontation with unions

Global Markets Overview: The FTSE All-World index is up 0.2% but commodities are falling as rising confidence in banks measures up against fears for the global economy

Investors are targeting countries with weak laws, buying arable land on the cheap and failing to deliver on promises of jobs and investments, according to the World Bank

FTSE Eurofirst banks index closed up nearly 5 per cent, best performance since €750bn eurozone bail-out package was sealed in May

General Electric has agreed to pay $23.5m to settle allegations from US regulators that its subsidiaries bribed Iraqi officials to win contracts under the UN Oil for Food Programme between 2000 and 2003

Hamid Gul hits back at allegations he supported the Taliban, saying the US orchestrated a mass leak of confidential files in a bid to scapegoat him for its failures in Afghanistan