| » The World Trade Organisation ruled that China's curbs on exports of raw materials are illegal, upholding a complaint lodged by the United States, the European Union and Mexico. China criticised the decision, justifying its limits on exports of metal ores and other materials on environmental grounds. The WTO's ruling could help America and others in any dispute with China over rare-earth materials, which are used in high-tech products. China has one-third of the world's reserves and accounts for almost all of current production but it has restricted exports, which some think is to induce foreign technology firms to place operations inside China.
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» The People's Bank of China raised interest rates for the fifth time in eight months, increasing both the one-year lending and deposit rates by a quarter of a percentage point. The central bank has taken a number of measures this year to restrict credit. » Underlining the dangers from a growing mountain of debt to the Chinese economy, Moody's, a credit-rating agency, issued a report claiming that China's first official audit of local-government loans had underestimated their value by $540 billion, which would take the total to $2.1 trillion. » Portugal reacted angrily to Moody's downgrade of its sovereign debt to "junk" status, complaining that it had not considered the country's recent austerity measures or new political consensus after an election. Moody's made the cut on the basis that Portugal will have trouble raising funds in the markets, if private investors take a hit in a second rescue deal for Greece. More European feathers were ruffled when Standard & Poor's became the first ratings agency to confirm that it may consider French proposals for private investors to roll over their Greek debt to be a "selective default".
 Zurich wins, Frankfurt loses » UBS nominated Axel Weber to be its next chairman, starting in 2013. Mr Weber is a former head of the German Bundesbank who earlier this year surprised many by ruling himself out of the running to succeed Jean-Claude Trichet as president of the European Central Bank. Mr Weber's appointment at the Swiss bank is a big blow for Deutsche Bank, which had spent the past two years courting him for a possible senior position. » Cesare Geronzi, one of Italy's most powerful financiers, was given a four-year prison term in relation to the bankruptcy in 2002 of Cirio, a food company. Mr Geronzi stepped down as the chairman of Assicurazioni Generali, Italy's largest insurer, in April and is a former chairman of Mediobanca, an investment bank. He was convicted of fraud in a separate case in 2006, but won an appeal. He remains free while he appeals against the decision in the Cirio trial.
Supermarket sweeps stakes » The dispute intensified between Casino and Carrefour, two French retailers, over the latter's proposed venture for Pão de Açúcar (GPA), a fast-growing Brazilian chain. Casino, which owns a 43% stake in GPA but was not consulted about the proposal, pressed its claim that Carrefour's plan to merge its existing assets in Brazil with those of GPA was hostile and arose "out of illegal negotiations". Carrefour was also criticised by some shareholders for not disclosing that it had held talks. The company insisted that the offer for GPA was not hostile. See article » Microsoft struck a deal that will see its Bing search engine adopted for internet searches in English on Baidu, China's most popular website. But the deal was criticised by some because searches in China on Bing will be subject to censorship rules. Google stopped offering a censored search service in China last year in a spat over the government's interference with its site. » HTC's net profit and revenues more than doubled in the second quarter compared with a year earlier. Two years ago the Taiwanese smartphone- maker retuned its business to make fewer devices that run on Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system and more that work on Google's Android. » Verizon Wireless followed AT&T by scrapping its unlimited-data plans for new smartphone subscribers and introducing tiered payment schemes based on the gigabytes of data used. Wireless operators in America have rapidly moved away from "all you can eat" plans for customers and are providing more selective pricing menus in anticipation of the increased appetite for services from high-speed networks.
Great expectations » It emerged that Twitter has begun another effort to raise capital from private investors, which could value the microblogging website at $7 billion. In February, during a previous fund-raising round, privately held Twitter was thought to be worth $4.5 billion. | 
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