The Observer: Observer Business, Media & Cash

Alistair Darling agrees to meet group of angry MPs to hear complaints about changes to car tax

Imperial Tobacco asks shareholders for more than £4bn to pay for acquisition of Spanish cigarette business Altadis

London & Continental Railways is close to selling its most valuable land holdings returning money to shareholders

Yahoo! investors are concerned that Carl Icahn's rebel campaign will lead to cheap pickings for Microsoft. By James Doran

Range of companies that could be hit goes beyond financial, housebuilding and retail sectors, according to ABN Amro

Palestine is one of the best-performing tourist destinations in the world

Victims of South Africa's apartheid regime win right to seek compensation from some of world's largest companies

Gordon Brown's plan to build 3 million homes by 2020 is under renewed criticism from group of MPs

Britain's energy suppliers resemble the Opec cartel and should be investigated by the Competition Commission, Energywatch will tell a powerful committee of MPs this week

Last week Denis MacShane attacked companies for fighting regulation. Sally Low of the BCC replies

Ruth Sunderland: There is a notion abroad in the commentariat that Gordon Brown, though a rubbish Prime Minister, was a brilliant Chancellor

Mervyn King's gloomy forecast that the 'nice decade' was over did more than just reflect on a difficult few months: it presaged the start of a long, dark slowdown for the economy, says Heather Stewart

Heather Stewart: Gordon Brown has made building three million new homes a priority of his premiership, but the property sector is suffering the full blast of the credit crunch

Heather Stewart: Britain's shoppers have stunned analysts by continuing to spend merrily for the past three years, despite negligible growth in take-home pay

Sainsbury's chief has defied the sceptics to turn the retailer's sales around, writes Nick Mathiason

The debate over new plants is obscuring a bigger problem: there isn't enough money being spent on decommissioning old ones. Tim Webb reports

As beleaguered FTSE stalwarts seek new cash, shareholders aren't about to forgive past recklessness, writes Heather Connon

Supachai Panitchpakdi's job at the UN is nothing less than to change world markets in a time of shortage, writes Nick Mathiason

Land slips into trouble | Why rates cuts won't help | A question of timing | On a roll no longer

William Keegan: Whom do you believe? Eddie Stobart or Mervyn King?

Simon Caulkin: Adult social care, on which the Prime Minister has just launched a public consultation, is widely considered a financial timebomb

He has been lampooned on the internet, but BBC3 controller Danny Cohen's bid to win younger viewers is showing real results, he tells James Robinson

New at the Statesman | Overtures in Israel | The clue's in the name | You are feeling sleepy ... | Axes to grind | Own goal for Rifkind? | Holy Moly, it's dad

Peter Preston: Very few commentators have anything good to say about Cherie Blair's memoirs. But for sheer, bristling, infinitely renewed hostility, the Mail had its rivals pulped

Peter Preston: Johnston Press is a bright, dynamic outfit that has grown the US way: hoovering up regional papers, cutting costs and racing forward on a balloon of debt

Peter Preston: Express editor Peter Hill couldn't really remain a PCC member for long after he'd been forced to apologise to the McCanns

Peter Preston: Rupert Murdoch's decision not to pay over the odds for Newsday suggests that money may be getting tight at News Corp

John Naughton: Windows XP is to be made available on the project's 'XO' laptop, the little green machine aimed at the world's poorest children

A decade of cheap credit is now causing problems for once relatively well-off people, writes Jill Insley

Jill Insley: The announcement that the Office of Fair Trading has begun an investigation into the sale-and-rent-back industry is very welcome

Barred from switching | 'Rate matcher' extended | How to complain

Lisa Bachelor and Huma Qureshi took a shopping list of staple foods to supermarkets, corner shops and the high street to find the cheapest option

Changes to paternity leave fail to address reasons why uptake is so low, writes Helen Pridham

Owners of homes blighted by runway plans may be waiting until 2015 for help, writes Jessie Hewitson

Houseprice watch surveys the winners and losers in the current housing market

The Revenue is to pursue a charge on pensions that has lain dormant for years. By Neasa MacErlean

It is no longer enough for investors simply to look for funds that meet their ethical criteria

Now even banks are offering customers green options, from paperless billing to ethical investments. Huma Qureshi reports

Four months to get a password from Halifax | My mum with Alzheimer's had to go to Abbey branch | Security still held on a mortgage I no longer had