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• Investors buoyed by better US jobs data
  Traders are piling into risky bets after a better than expected US labour market report reinforced hopes that the US economy can avoid sliding back into recession.
  
  
• Weak service data add to slowdown fears
  Service sector activity grew at the weakest pace in 16 months in August, heightening fears that the economy is beginning to stall
  
  
• Beijing eyes counterbid for PotashCorp
  The Chinese government has backed Sinochem, the state-owned chemicals giant, to pursue a counterbid that could trump BHP Billiton’s $39bn hostile offer for PotashCorp
  
  
• Buffett and Gates on Chinese mission
  Having persuaded many of their billionaire peers in the US into giving away chunks of money, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are travelling to China to host newly minted Chinese tycoons to sell them on the value of philanthropy
  
  
• BP disaster costs rise to $8bn
  BP said it had spent almost $2bn in the last month responding to its Gulf of Mexico oil spill, even as it plugged the leak, taking its total bill for the catastrophe to $8bn.
  
  
• US jobs data allay double dip concerns
  Fears of a double-dip recession in the US were allayed on Friday by data showing that the private sector had created 235,000 jobs in the past three months
  
  
• France and UK seek closer military ties
  France and Britain have stepped up their talks about strengthening bilateral defence co-operation but ruled out the idea of sharing aircraft carriers as ‘utterly unrealistic’
  
  
• China and US stage Yellow Sea wargames
  China and the US stage near-simultaneous naval exercises this week in the oceans around the Yellow Sea in one of the most open displays of the rising competition between the two rival forces in north Asia
  
  
• Fears grow over global food supply
  Wheat prices have risen further in the wake of Russia’s decision to extend its grain export ban by 12 months, raising fears about a return to the food shortages and riots of 2007-08
  
  
• HSBC in clearest warning over relocation
  Warning given over British banks moving their headquarters abroad if UK government-appointed Commission on Banking were to decide that big groups should be broken up