 » Consumer prices in China rose at the quickest pace in three years, by 5.5% in May from a year earlier. Politically sensitive food prices surged by 11.7%. The People's Bank of China increased the reserve requirement for banks for the sixth time this year, the latest step in the central bank's effort to restrain credit and cool the economy. Separate data showed a sharp fall in new loans issued by Chinese banks in May compared with April. A jittery world economy » America's headline inflation rate, including food and energy, rose by a seasonally adjusted 0.2% in May from April (or by 3.6% from a year earlier). Excluding food and energy, prices increased by 0.3%, the fastest clip since July 2008. » George Osborne, the British chancellor, threw his weight behind the proposals of the Vickers commission on banking, which in an interim report in April recommended that banks ring-fence their retail operations and set aside 10% of capital as a buffer against hard times, a higher ratio than that currently being proposed in international capital rules. Mr Osborne also announced plans to auction off the mortgage and savings business of Northern Rock, which was taken into state ownership in 2008.
See article » The IMF formally accepted the nominations of two candidates for the position of managing director: Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister and firm favourite for the job, and Agustín Carstens, the governor of the Bank of Mexico, who has asked emerging economies to back his long-shot bid. Stanley Fischer, a renowned academic economist who heads Israel's central bank, made a late entry into the field but was excluded from the final list because at 67 he is two years older than the maximum for candidates. » Johnson & Johnson decided to pull out of the business for drug-coated heart stents, a market it transformed when it introduced a blockbuster product in 2003. Recently its sales from stents have shrunk as rivals have brought out ever more innovative devices.
Leading the way? » Nicolas Sarkozy sharpened his attack on speculation in commodities markets, which he insists is an underlying factor in pushing up prices for raw materials. The French president said that the "gap between the reality of physical markets and that of financial markets has widened" and called for stricter regulations, on commodities trading, such as minimum deposits for derivatives trades and a global standard for clearing contracts. » Glencore (which came under fire from Mr Sarkozy in his speech, without being named specifically) posted its first earnings since making its stockmarket debut last month. The commodities-trading company reported that revenue had increased by 39% and net profit by 47% in the first quarter compared with the same period last year.  » Maple Group Acquisition, a consortium of Canadian banks and pension funds which has launched a hostile bid for TMX, the operator of the Toronto Stock Exchange, said four more financial institutions had joined its alliance. Maple is trying to trump a friendly offer for TMX from the London Stock Exchange. » Apple settled a patent dispute with Nokia, which demanded royalties for the use of its intellectual property in the iPhone. Apple will pay a one-off fee to Nokia and royalties from now on. The pair will enter into a patent-licensing agreement that ends all outstanding quarrels over patents between the companies, including the countersuit that Apple brought against Nokia. » As Apple and Nokia made up, tensions escalated between Hewlett-Packard and Oracle when HP sued Oracle, accusing it of purposely neglecting to fix software bugs for customers in a chip widely used in HP's servers in order to entice them to switch to Oracle's servers. The two companies have been at odds since Mark Hurd was forced out as HP's boss last year, only to take a senior position at Oracle.
Pandora's money box » Another internet company made a much-heralded stockmarket debut. Pandora, an online music service, priced its initial public offering well above expectations at $16 a share. Plenty of analysts believe that many of the recent "hot" tech flotations may have been overpriced. Profitless Pandora faces stiffer competition as Apple and others expand their music services. » VF, a clothing and footwear company based in North Carolina that owns some of the world's most-recognised apparel brands, including Wrangler, Lee, Vans, Nautica, JanSport and North Face, added Timberland to its range by agreeing to pay around $2.3 billion for the outdoorsy label. VF traces its roots to 1899, as a glove manufacturer in Pennsylvania. | 
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