Business week in pictures

Rebel fighters in Ras Lanuf, Libya. Oil broke through the $124-a-barrel mark for the first time since August 2008 after attacks on Libyan oil fields raised concerns about supply. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted it could rise to around the record $147 a barrel reached in July 2008 Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian

Jamie Dimon, pictured, the head of JP Morgan Chase, received a pay rise of about 51% last year including a $5m (£3m) cash bonus, a move that angered campaigners for a levy on the banking industry. It is the latest sign that pay on Wall Street is returning to pre-crash levels as its biggest players post higher profits Photograph: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images

A shutdown of the US federal government scheduled to begin on Saturday 9 April was averted after the Democrats and Republicans reached agreement only hours before midnight on a $39bn package of spending cuts. The shutdown would have closed hundreds of federal agencies. President Obama – pictured visiting the Lincoln Memorial - warned Americans they faced painful times: 'I would not have made these cuts in better circumstances,' he said in his weekly radio address Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

British Airways has turned to a clinical psychologist in a bid to solve its long-running industrial dispute with cabin crew represented by the Unite trade union. Mark Hamlin, whose company specialises in dealing with 'fragility of trust', is understood to have met senior figures at BA and Unite in a bid to improve a fractious relationship Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

Icelanders rejected the latest government-approved plan to repay the £3bn owed to Britain and the Netherlands from the crash of the country's banking system in 2008, prompting the prime minister, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, to warn of economic and political chaos. The dispute is now likely to end up in a European court. Pictured: Iceland's president, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, casts his vote at a polling station in Reykjavik Photograph: Halldor Kolbeins/AFP/Getty Images

Banks breathed a sigh of relief as the independent commission on banking report rejected the more radical options designed to ensure taxpayers will never again have to bail out the financial system. More than £1bn was added to the stock market value of three major banks, while Sir John Vickers, chairman of the commission, reacted angrily to suggestions that the commission had 'bottled it' Photograph: Darrin Zammit Lupi/Reuters

The richest slice of Russian society has doubled its wealth in the past 20 years, according to research by Moscow's Higher School of Economics. The report found the purchasing power of the average Russian has grown by 45% since the early 1990s, but income disparity is widening by the year, reinforcing a widely held view that oligarchs got rich quick by snapping up the country's choicest assets in the turbulent post-Soviet period Photograph: Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr/AP

The MG6 fastback is the first all-new MG to be launched in 16 years. Six years after MG Rover Group went into administration, MG’s current owner, the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), has revived the MG marque. Despite the fact that it is three-quarters built in China before being shipped over and finished off by the 40 or so manufacturing workers in Birmingham – on the former Longbridge site – the company insists the five-door hardtop is a true MG Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

The pound fell sharply on the foreign exchanges after an unexpected fall in inflation from 4.4% to 4% and fears about a renewed slowdown in the economy forced the City to revise its forecasts of an imminent rise in interest rates. Meanwhile the Office for National Statistics said it was investigating claims that March inflation figures were leaked before their release Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

A thousand economists wrote to G20 finance ministers meeting in Washington, urging them to tax City speculators to help the world's poor. The experts from 53 countries describe the so-called 'Robin Hood tax' or Tobin tax on transactions in financial markets as 'an idea that has come of age'. Pictured: A health worker gives a polio vaccination on World Health Day in Mumbai, India Photograph: Divyakant Solanki/EPA

The latest unemployment figures show the under-25s and women workers are bearing much of the pain in Britain's jobs market, while average earnings continued to lag behind inflation. But there was an unexpected fall in the total out of work, which cut the UK's jobless rate from 8% to 7.8% Photograph: Luke MacGregor/Reuters

Thomas the Tank Engine and Bob the Builder could be about to part company, with their owner HIT Entertainment split in two as part of a process to sell the company by private equity firm Apax Partners. Thomas & Friends is believed to account for over half of HIT's revenues and earnings and is the property most likely to entice buyers. His stablemates – including Bob the Builder (pictured), Angelina Ballerina, Fireman Sam and Pingu – are up for sale as a second, separate entity Photograph: Carl Court/PA

In a frenzy to protect its interests at the start of the credit crisis, Goldman Sachs sold mortgage-linked derivatives to clients at inflated prices and misrepresented the nature of the deals, according to documents released by a Senate subcommittee. Carl Levin, who heads the subcommittee, said Goldman had 'exploited' clients and top executives had lied to congress during testimony in 2010 Photograph: Mark Lennihan/AP

Security guards line up at BP's annual meeting, held a few days before the first anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. BP faced the fury of protestors from the Gulf coast affected by the spill, as well as the wrath of shareholders who voted against the re-election of BP's safety committee Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters