News briefs from The Economist

Global business

Royal Dutch Shell took a $2.2 billion write-down in the second quarter, primarily on its American shale assets. This, combined with oil theft and disruptions to gas supplies in Nigeria, which accounts for as much as one-tenth of the Anglo-Dutch oil giant's daily production, slashed quarterly profits by $1.1 billion compared with a year ago, to $4.6 billion.

HSBC's net profit rose by 25 percent in the first half of the year. But the British bank's revenue was down by 7 percent, as it reduced its global presence to focus on "priority markets" where growth has eased. HSBC also admitted that it may have to pay the American government up to $1.6 billion in damages over the improper sale of mortgage-backed bonds.

An American court found Fabrice Tourre, a former Goldman Sachs trader, liable for fraud in a complex derivatives deal from 2007. The ruling marks a victory for the Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed the case in 2010 in an effort to show it was holding bankers to account following the subprime crisis.

The White House overturned a ban on the sale of some Apple gadgets imposed by an American trade tribunal, which had sided with Samsung, a South Korean rival, in a patent dispute. Less welcome for Apple was the Justice Department's request to a judge to curb Apple's influence in the e-publishing market and introduce government oversight of its iTunes and App stores. Apple called the idea "draconian and punitive."

Several countries, including China, recalled milk powder produced by Fonterra, the world's biggest dairy exporter, after the firm found traces of a bacterium that can cause botulism in one of its products. The New Zealand company's boss, Theo Spierings, rushed to Beijing to apologize to Chinese consumers.

In the latest blow to Eike Batista, who lost the title of Brazil's richest man earlier this year following the implosion of his oil and mining empire, a group of disgruntled investors accused him of insider trading. Brazil's stock market regulator is already pursuing 13 other inquiries into OGX, Batista's flagship company.

The Washington Post Co. announced it will sell its flagship newspaper (and a few other titles) to Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, for $250 million. The New York Times Co., meanwhile, agreed to sell the Boston Globe to John Henry, another billionaire, for $70 million, a fraction of the $1.1 billion it paid for the Globe in 1993.

The Royal Bank of Scotland named Ross McEwan, a retail banker from New Zealand, as its new boss. In June Britain's government, which still owns 81 percent of the lender, decided to boot out his predecessor, Stephen Hester. McEwan will take over in October.

Political economy

Britain's recovery gathered pace. Industrial output grew by 1.2 percent year on year, the fastest rate since January 2011, with manufacturing up by 2 percent. The composite purchasing managers' index, a measure of business activity in which a reading above 50 indicates growth, stood at 59.5 in July, the perkiest since records began in 1998.

The Italian economy also performed better than expected, though it still shrank by 0.2 percent from April to June. GDP has now sagged for eight consecutive quarters, making this Italy's longest postwar recession. Output languishes 8.8 percent below its peak in 2007.

Raghuram Rajan, a former chief economist at the IMF, was picked to head the Reserve Bank of India. Rajan, who will succeed Duvvuri Subbarao as governor in September, acknowledged that "there is no magic wand" to fix India's problems of slowing growth, a weak ­currency and a big current-account deficit.