Business week in pictures

The richest 5% of Britons have been the biggest winners from the Bank of England's attempts to lift the economy out of recession by creating electronic money, the Bank has said. But in a defence of the £375bn programme of asset sales since 2009, the Bank said that quantitative easing had spared the UK from an even deeper slump Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

Building shopping centres is fraught with difficulties. Just ask the people of Bradford. Their city centre is blighted by a large building site, dubbed the Bradford Hole, where work on a new Westfield shopping centre was halted four years ago. Occupy Westfield protesters recently set up camp there for five weeks but have left again. In nearby Leeds, however, it's a different story. A new shopping centre the size of 13 football pitches and crowned by a sweeping glass dome is due to open there next year, the largest project of its kind in western Europe. Trinity Leeds will have a million square feet of space with 120 shops, 12 restaurants, bars and cafes and the biggest Everyman cinema in Britain. As if that were not enough, work is due to start on another huge city-centre mall in 2014 Photograph: /Giles Rocholl

Disabled workers at factories being sold by the government are to stage a four-day strike over the threat of job losses. Members of the GMB and Unite unions at Remploy sites in Chesterfield and Springburn, Glasgow, will walk out from 28 August Photograph: Graham Turner for The Guardian

The Conservative party is under pressure to return a large donation from Asil Nadir's business empire after the disgraced tycoon was convicted of the theft of nearly £29m. Nadir, who will be sentenced on Thursday, could face 14 years in jail. A jury at the Old Bailey on Wednesday found him guilty on a further seven counts, to add to the three guilty verdicts they reached on Monday, concluding that he had plundered Polly Peck of £28.6m between 1987 and 1990 – the equivalent of £61.8m today Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA

Facebook's shares hit new lows, sinking to less than half their initial public offering price and halving the fortune of founder Mark Zuckerberg. By mid-morning, Facebook's shares hit a new low of $18.75 (£11.91), less than half the $38 they were sold for in May amid the most heavily hyped stock sale in recent history. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The race to the bottom in drug prices in Europe has spawned an army of speculators buying medicines cheaply in one country – such as Greece and the UK – to sell in another at a much higher price, according to a report by business intelligence firm GlobalData. The UK drugs watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), has been putting pressure on drugmakers to lower their prices for many years. This has triggered shortages of some medicines. In crisis-stricken Greece, drug prices have been slashed dramatically, resulting in a lucrative carry trade for wholesalers, the report said Photograph: Alamy

Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic has announced the launch of a London to Manchester flight, days after the tycoon's rail business lost the franchise for the same route. Virgin Atlantic said it would offer a service three times a day between Heathrow and Manchester airport, its first domestic route, from March next year Photograph: Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images

Lonmin has been forced to go cap in hand to its banks after admitting that it will breach its loan agreements as a result of a strike that led to the shooting of 34 miners last week. The London-listed platinum miner was forced to warn investors that the shutdown of its Marikana mine 60 miles from Johannesburg will result in debt covenants being breached Photograph: Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

Barely a day goes past without mining or other parts of the extractive industries talking up a "new frontier" for their work: Thursday it must be the Arctic, Friday perhaps Burma, and Saturday could be Mozambique. But today it is surely Mongolia, a country remembered largely for 13th-century exploits of Ghengis Khan but in 2012 celebrated for a 16.7% first-quarter economic growth rate – more than double that of China
Photograph: EPA