Business week in pictures

President Barack Obama shocked the financial world by targeting 'irresponsible' trading among Wall Street firms
Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty

The news came on the same day that Goldman Sachs claimed it had shown 'restraint' in paying out $16bn in bonuses to staff after a surge in profits
Photograph: Andrew Winning/Reuters

Morgan Stanley said it had returned to the black with quarterly profits of $757m
Photograph: Mark Lennihan/AP

Citigroup declared that it was making 'enormous progress' in clambering back to financial health despite losing $7.6bn (£4.6bn) in the final quarter of 2009 as it dug deep to pay back billions of dollars of emergency aid to American taxpayers
Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Local campaigner Ray Egan dressed as John Bull gives out sweets as he joins workers in Bournville. Cadbury finally accepted defeat in its battle to stay independent by recommending a £12bn takeover from US rival Kraft
Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

The chief executive of Cadbury, Todd Stitzer, stands to pocket cash and shares worth £12m from the company's £11.9bn sale in a deal that also hands fees of at least £250m to legions of City advisers
Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

But Warren Buffett, the world's most successful investor and Kraft's biggest shareholder, condemned the US conglomerate's £11.9bn acquisition of Cadbury as a 'bad deal'
Photograph: Thomas Lohnes/AFP/Getty Images

Kraft's proposed takeover of Cadbury also raised widespread fears that the US food group will abandon a landmark deal by the British confectioner to buy only Fairtrade cocoa beans for its Dairy Milk brand
Photograph: Yusuf Ahmad/Reuters

In Bournville, the chocolate brand's spiritual home, it felt a little bit like a death in the family. Just about everyone in this leafy model village on the edge of Birmingham has worked at the famous factory or has a relative who has done so. Even those few who had nothing at all to do with
Photograph: Darren Staples/Reuters

Despite the billions of dollars changing hands, the political furore and the loss of one of the oldest names in British business, the question on many lips is simple: is it curtains for the Curly Wurly? Kraft was doing all it could to reassure consumers (among others) that it would respect Cadbury's heritage
Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

In economic news, the Office for National Statistics said the broadest measure of unemployment fell by 7,000 to 2.458 million, the first quarterly decline since May 2008, leaving the jobless rate at 7.8%
Photograph: David Sillitoe

The annual rate of consumer price inflation (CPI) jumped to 2.9% in December, up from 1.9% in November, a record monthly rise
Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

The armed forces may shrink by a fifth in the next six years as the government seeks to slash the country's budget deficit. Britain borrowed £15.7bn to balance the books last month, the highest December figure on record, as two-and-a-half years of financial crisis and recession took its toll of the public finances
Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

In retail, supermarkets group Wm Morrison reported cracking Christmas sales, outstripping its larger rivals with a jump of 6.5%
Photograph: Darren Staples/Reuters

Job losses at Lloyds Banking Group are on course to top 16,000 after the bank, which is 43%-owned by taxpayers, put another 685 jobs at risk
Photograph: David Levene

Two men dressed in fake medieval armour march past at a shopping mall in Beijing, China. The Chinese economy returned to double digit growth in the fourth quarter, with a jump of 10.7% year-on-year, but inflation is creeping up again amid fears of overheating
Photograph: Ng Han Guan/AP

As if Barack Obama didn't have enough to worry about, his well-appointed presidential home in the heart of Washington DC is apparently slipping in value thanks to America's dismal economy and lacklustre property market
Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters