Global business

Kinross Gold, a Canadian gold-mining company, agreed to buy Red Back Mining in a $7.1 billion deal. The all-stock acquisition will give the company access to large new gold projects in West Africa.

BNP Paribas posted higher-than-expected profits in the second quarter, driven by a solid performance in its retail operations. The French bank reported a 31 percent rise in net profit to $2.7 billion. Revenue fell 30 percent on lower trading and capital-raising activities, mainly attributed to worries about European sovereign debt.

A fall in impairment charges drove profits at HSBC for the first half of the year. The British lender saw net profit double to $6.7 billion year over year. Investment banking revenue, however, fell 13 percent to $5.6 billion. Barclays, another British bank, posted a 44 percent rise in half-year pretax profits, to $6.3 billion. Its investment bank arm, Barclays Capital, reported a 31 percent profit boost from last year, to 2.5 billion pounds.

BMW's second-quarter earnings outdid expectations. The German carmaker posted a sixfold year-over-year rise in net profit to $1.1 billion, led by higher demand for luxury cars in China.

The effects of the 8.5 million-vehicle global recall earlier this year did not stop Toyota from posting healthy earnings in its fiscal first quarter. The Japanese carmaker announced quarterly profits of $2.1 billion, reversing a loss in the same period the year before.

The purchasing-managers index in the eurozone, used to measure manufacturing activity, rose to 56.7 in July, up from 55.6 the previous month. The improvement was almost exclusively led by Germany and Italy. French activity growth was at its slowest in 10 months, highlighting the asymmetry of the recovery within the 16-nation common-currency area.

Political economy Extremely dry and hot weather in Russia has caused a sharp reduction in wheat production and spurred the fastest spike in the global price of the crop since 1973. On Aug. 5 the president, Vladimir Putin, announced a temporary ban on the export of grain crops. Similar conditions have affected Ukrainian and Kazakh production, while heavy rainfall is taking its toll on Canadian output.

Greece should receive a second tranche of bailout funding worth $11.8 billion next month after a broadly positive assessment by a team of officials from the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund. But the team warned that Greece's attempts to boost revenue by clamping down on tax evasion were not meeting targets.

Mexican security forces shot dead Ignacio (Nacho) Coronel, a top lieutenant in the Sinaloa drug-trafficking organization. It is the first time that the government has killed a high-ranking member of the country's biggest drug gang.

Raul Castro, Cuba's president, announced that the government would remove some limits on licenses for small businesses and would allow them to hire employees. However, he ruled out broader changes to Cuba's centrally planned socialist economy.

The long-simmering tension between Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's prime minister, and Gianfranco Fini, the co-founder of his governing People of Freedom movement, erupted when Berlusconi published a document accusing Fini of creating a "party within a party." Fini responded by taking 33 deputies with him to form a new parliamentary group, thus depriving Berlusconi of a majority.

The Netherlands looked set for its first minority government. Mark Rutte, leader of the liberal VVD, which won the June election, is expected to form a ruling coalition with the Christian Democrats. The parties will need the support of the Freedom Party, led by Geert Wilders, a controversial right-winger who has compared the Koran to Hitler's "Mein Kampf."