Business week in pictures

A group of economists has written to the Queen urging her to demand monthly ministerial briefings on possible pitfalls looming for the economy. Responding to her concern over why no one foresaw the recession, first voiced in a visit to the London School of Economics last summer, the letter suggests she might play her own role. 'If you, your majesty, were to ask for a monthly economic and financial horizon-scanning summary from, say, the cabinet office, it could hardly be refused,' said the letter, signed by LSE professor Tim Besley, and historian Peter Hennessy Photograph: Graham Turner Photograph: Graham Turner/guardian.co.uk European leaders gathered in Brussels on Thursday for a summit devoted to economic policy amid growing speculation that they could come to Greece's rescue in the first bailout by the eurozone of a single-currency country. The European Central Bank signalled that its head, Jean-Claude Trichet, had cut short a trip to Australia to rush back to Brussels for the summit, triggering speculation that the 16 eurozone countries were preparing a bailout for Greece, which is teetering on the brink of national insolvency. Photograph, left to right: Jean-Claude Trichet, Jose Manuel Barroso, Angela Merkel, Herman Van Rompuy, George Papandreo and Nicolas Sarkozy Photograph: Thierry Roge/Reuters Photograph: Thierry Roge/guardian.co.uk Public sector workers in Greece took to the streets during a nationwide one-day strike in protest at the austerity measures being implemented to try to address the country's financial crisis. Anger in Athens started with graffiti and by dawn the calls to battle were daubed across the facades of banks and shops and government buildings. By noon it had morphed into a 'resistance movement' as militant leftwingers and striking civil servants – some holding banners, some pounding drums, some shouting themselves hoarse – marched Photograph: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA Photograph: Orestis Panagiotou/guardian.co.uk Hats off to the Bank of England's governor, Mervyn King, who found the time to go for a ride on a dog sled during the weekend's summit of G7 finance ministers, which Canada hosted in the remote Arctic city of Iqaluit. Other local customs were less popular: none of the visiting ministers chose to attend a feast on Saturday night, laid on by the local Inuit community, at which raw seal was on the menu. Canada's Jim Flaherty was left to chow down on some seal meat alone Photograph: Chris Wattie/Reuters Photograph: Chris Wattie/guardian.co.uk Many of Britain's towns and cities are suffering from such huge shop vacancy rates that they risk becoming ghost towns, wiping hundreds of millions of pounds off property values, a study revealed this week. Cities such as Wolverhampton and Bradford (pictured), where nearly a quarter of shops lie empty, could be on an irreversible downward spiral as a result of the financial crisis. The research by the Local Data Company shows retail vacancy rates across Britain rose 2% in the past six months of last year to 12%, with some towns seeing as much as 24% of its shops lying empty Photograph: Dave Cameron/Alamy Photograph: Dave Cameron/guardian.co.uk Lord Browne admitted he stayed at BP too long because he had become obsessed with running the oil group. He has also suggested in his revealing memoirs, published this week , that his arrogance and a culture of complacency contributed to BP's failure to prevent a huge oil spill in Alaska Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/guardian.co.uk A woman and child take a break from sales shopping in Westfield shopping centre. The high street suffered its worst January in at least 15 years last month as snow storms, higher VAT and anxious consumers all took their toll on sales, the British Retail Consortium reports today . The BRC called it an 'awful' start to 2010 trading Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images Photograph: Oli Scarff/guardian.co.uk The snowy weather helped to push discount clothing chain Ethel Austin into administration . Over 3,700 jobs were put at risk when administrators from MCR took control of the company and its sister firm Au Naturale, a homewares chain Photograph: Paul Faith/PA Photograph: Paul Faith/guardian.co.uk The FSA faced uncertainty after its chief executive, Hector Sants, announced his resignation just months before a general election, with the Tories saying they would scrap the regulator if they got into power. Sants, a former banker, is stepping down from the FSA in the summer Photograph: Kevin Coombs/Reuters Photograph: Kevin Coombs/guardian.co.uk Toyota is to recall almost half a million hybrid cars worldwide , including 8,500 of its Prius model in the UK, in the latest blow to the carmaker's reputation following a string of safety scares. The announcement followed about 200 complaints in Japan and the US over a software glitch in its best-selling Prius petrol-electric hybrid that can cause temporary brake failure at low speeds on bumpy or icy roads Photograph: Kacper Pempel/Reuters Photograph: Kacper Pempel/guardian.co.uk An oil and gas platform off Sakhalin Island, Sea of Okhotsk, Russia. Sir Richard Branson and fellow leading businessmen warned ministers that the world is running out of oil and faces an oil crunch within five years. "The next five years will see us face another crunch – the oil crunch. This time, we do have the chance to prepare. The challenge is to use that time well," said the Virgin group founder, whose rail, airline and travel companies are sensitive to energy prices Photograph: Jess Jones/Newscast/EPA Photograph: Jess Jones/Newscast/guardian.co.uk A football made of 33,000 white diamonds, 10,000 black diamonds and 2.5kg of white gold at the Forum of Jewellery Industry Junwex in St Petersburg. The ball will be presented to the future winners of the Russian Football Cup tournament. A glut of diamonds in wholesale markets and plunging consumer demand for luxury goods pushed De Beers, the world's largest diamond producer, $220m (£140m) into the red last year Photograph: Alexander Demianchuk/Reuters Photograph: Alexander Demianchuk/guardian.co.uk Iron ore piles at Rio Tinto's Parker Point, Dampier, Western Australia. Rio Tinto went public with its concerns over the four employees who have been charged with industrial espionage and bribery . Sam Walsh, chief executive of Rio Tinto's iron ore division, said the mining company was extremely worried about the four staff, who were formally charged by China in a move that dramatically raised the stakes between the two sides Photograph: Christian Sprogoe/Rio Tinto/guardian.co.uk Snow falls on a New York Times vending box in Times Square. Signs of a rebound in online advertising helped the New York Times's publisher return to the black with annual profits of $19.9m (£12.7m) for 2009, in the latest indication of a tentative improvement in the fortunes of the badly battered global newspaper industry Photograph: Mark Lennihan/AP Photograph: Mark Lennihan/guardian.co.uk