Business week in pictures

France Telecom employees wearing a masks demonstrate in front of one of the company's outlets in Auch, France. The deputy chief executive of France Telecom resigned in the wake of a spate of staff suicides that unions have blamed on a bullying management style and brutal approach to restructuring. Europe's third-biggest phone company, has seen its brand name, Orange, suffer a public relations disaster as 24 workers have killed themselves in shocking circumstances in the last 18 months. Some staff were found dead in their workplace or left harrowing notes blaming the company for "management by terror" and bullying Photograph: Sebastien Lapeyrere/EPA

Commuters walk over London Bridge towards the City of London. Up to 60,000 jobs could be lost in the financial services sector this year, according to the CBI and PricewaterhouseCoopers, adding to fears expressed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that Britain faces a jobless recovery. In their quarterly industry health check the CBI and PwC said the volume of job losses amounts to almost double the number cut in the sector last year Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images Europe

A lifeboat on a wall near London's Canary Wharf. New rules issued by the City regulator could force Britain's banks to hold up to £900bn of top quality government bonds – more than three times current levels. Banks criticised the rules for posing a risk to economic recovery and hindering London's position as an international financial centre. The Financial Services Authority, however, is determined to press ahead with its radical overhaul of the liquidity rules which are intended to make the financial markets safer and stronger following the credit crunch two years ago Photograph: Tim Ireland/PA

A farmer with a cart loaded with sugar cane in Uttar Pradesh, India. The price of sugar on global commodity markets has doubled since the beginning of the year and is close to a 28-year high as hedge funds and speculators jostle to bet on the possibility of an international shortage of the world's favourite natural sweetener. For financiers sugar has become the new oil. Historically, raw sugar has traded at between 10 and 12 US cents per pound at the New York Board of Trade. But the price briefly touched 24.85 cents last month, its highest since 1981, and sugar is now hovering around the 23 cent mark Photograph: Amit Bhargava/Corbis

Steve Ballmer of Microsoft gestures during a presentation of the Windows 7 operating system in Munich. Microsoft is launching a full-frontal assault on Apple's iPhone and Google's mobile phone platform Android with a global advertising campaign to promote the launch of its new Windows phone software that will run to 'several hundred million dollars'. Windows Phone - technically Windows Mobile version 6.5 - will appear on over 30 devices in 20 markets across the world, including the UK, by the end of the year. Deals with handset manufacturers including Toshiba, Samsung, LG and HTC were unveiled Photograph: Oliver Lang/AFP/Getty Images

Shadow chancellor George Osborne takes part in a live television interview outside the Conservative Party conference where he had announced a series of spending squeezes. A Conservative government would impose a one-year pay freeze for the four million public servants earning more than £18,000 in 2011 as Osborne vowed to tackle the country's debt crisis. He would also bring forward plans to increase the state retirement age to 66 to save £13bn a year from 2020. He will cap the pensions of public sector workers at £50,000 a year to save 'hundreds of millions of pounds in pension liabilities' Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA

People ride the Loch Ness Monster roller coaster at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg. The Blackstone private equity empire is buying 10 US theme parks, including SeaWorld tourist attractions in Florida and California, for $2.7bn from brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev in a deal building the buyout group into one of the world's top investors in amusement destinations Photograph: Scott K Brown/AP

Royal Mail lost a crucial contract with its second largest customer, the online retailer Amazon, with Argos and eBay looking possibly to follow, and as a wave of strikes threaten parcel deliveries in the busy pre-Christmas sales period. The news came on the eve of a national strike announcement by the Communication Workers Union that is likely to bring the simmering industrial dispute to the boil and further disrupt deliveries across the country Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

A British Airways Airbus taxis down the runway at London City Airport. British Airways faced a likely Christmas strikes as union bosses accused the airline of trying to intimidate staff over working conditions. Unite launched a scathing attack on BA after it announced it was cutting 1,700 full-time cabin crew positions at Heathrow and warned of 'serious, drawn out confrontation' over changes to working conditions for remaining staff. Irish airline Aer Lingus also announced hundreds of redundancies Photograph: Sang Tan/AP

Bruce Springsteen performing with the E Street Band. The controversial merger between the world's leading concert seller Ticketmaster and promoter Live Nation was thrown into uncertainty when the Competition Commission ruled that it would damage competition and probably push up the ticket prices. Opposition to the merger had also been voiced by singer Bruce Springsteen who said it would create 'a near-monopoly situation' Photograph: Rob Tringali/Sportschrome/Getty Images