Business week in pictures

McDonald's scored a PR coup this week when Weight Watchers agreed to endorse some of its products in New Zealand – a move greeted with outrage by nutritionists and obesity experts
Photograph: Graeme Robertson

Prudential announced it was to launch the world's biggest rights issue to finance its takeover of AIG's Asian assets in a "transformational" $35.5bn (£23bn) deal. Britain's biggest insurance company confirmed it had reached agreement to take control of AIA, making it the biggest operator in the Asian insurance market
Photograph: Luke MacGregor/Reuters

Houses on sale for a few dollars are an urban legend in the US, but in Detroit it is no myth. One in five houses now stand empty in the city that launched the automobile age and blessed the world with Motown
Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The prospect of a hung parliament sent sterling falling sharply against other major currencies on the financial markets this week. On Monday the pound lost more than four cents against the dollar, hitting a fresh nine-month low of $1.4784
Photograph: Luke MacGregor/Reuters

Stuart Gulliver, whose £10m pay deal made him the highest paid banker at HSBC last year, defended the practice of big payouts as Europe's largest bank reported a 24% fall in pretax profits. Gulliver was one of five bankers to share a £38m bonus bonanza at HSBC, which suffered a 5% fall in its share price after its profits announcement
Photograph: Luke MacGregor/Reuters

Protesting Greeks were again told that they faced seeing their country go bankrupt unless they accepted more austerity measures, as the prime minister ignored public outrage and pushed ahead with a radical new package of budgetary reforms
Photograph: Petros Giannakouris/AP

The Germans, though, are losing patience with the Greek debt situation, with two rightwing MPs telling Greece it should consider a fire sale of its islands, historic buildings and artworks
Photograph: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images

There's been more bad news for the car industry as Nissan announced it is recalling more than 500,000 vehicles, mainly in the US, because of problems with their brakes and petrol gauges. The move came just hours after General Motors recalled more than 1.3m cars
Photograph: Miguel Villagran/Getty Images

In fact, things have got so bad on the car recall front that a Republican senator, Mike Johanns, has suggested banning all Japanese car imports to the US in response to Toyota's problems with defective accelerators
Photograph: Charles Pertwee/Bloomberg via Getty Images

On the up side, General Motors announced a major investment programme in its European carmaking operations, including Vauxhall in the UK. The US company unveiled a €1.9bn (£1.7bn) package for Opel/Vauxhall, more than trebling its previous investment pledge
Photograph: Denis Balibouse/Reuters

The Obama administration's radical plan to limit the size of banks and ban risky trading activities is "too difficult" to achieve, according to Lord Mandelson, who delivered the bluntest signal yet of British unhappiness with the direction of US financial reforms
Photograph: Cameron Davidson/Corbis

Wealthy foreign investors have approached the Red Knights group of City financiers and businessmen looking to wrest control of Manchester United from the Glazer family. Interest from European, Asian and Middle Eastern multimillionaires in a possible takeover of United boosted hopes the Red Knights can raise sufficient cash to tempt the Glazers to sell
Photograph: Christopher Thomond

The Ivy's owner, millionaire rag trade boss Richard Caring, has had his nose put out of joint by an ersatz US version of his restaurant opened in Coconut Grove, Miami. Called The Ivy at the Grove, the upstart establishment is run by Tim Power, an exiled former head of the Belgo dining group, which owned The Ivy a decade ago
Photograph: PR

British Airways cabin crew are on the brink of strike action after the airline signalled its readiness for a lengthy walkout by lining up 1,000 volunteer flight attendants and a fleet of chartered jets to maintain services during industrial action
Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

For decades, it has been seen as the world's lost continent. Now, a new study says that the view of Africa as a basket case is wrong. Xavier Sala-i-Martin and Maxim Pinkovskiy, two US-based academics, found that in the 10 years before the credit crunch began, poverty rates fell rapidly and inequality declined right across the continent
Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters