Rebekah Brooks, the former editor of the British tabloid News of the World and a confidante of its owner, Rupert Murdoch, was arrested Tuesday in connection with a phone-hacking investigation, police said.

London’s Metropolitan Police refused to name her, but said the woman arrested Tuesday had previously been arrested July 17, the date Brooks was arrested. She was the only one arrested in connection with phone hacking that day.

News International’s head of security, Mark Hanna, was also arrested, according to an internal message sent to staff by the company’s chief executive, Tom Mockridge, the Times newspaper reported. The Times is one of News International’s titles.

Dozens of current and former employees of News International, the News Corp. subsidiary that publishes Murdoch’s British newspapers, have been arrested on suspicion of bribing police or illegally intercepting voice mail or e-mail. No one has been charged.

Accusations of widespread phone hacking on behalf of News of the World prompted its publisher to fold the publication last July.

Brooks had previously been arrested in connection with phone hacking and police bribery, and was released on bail after a day of questioning.

She was among six people detained Tuesday on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, police said.

She was also presumably one of the five people reported by Metropolitan Police as having been bailed out on Tuesday. She is “to return pending further inquiries to an Oxfordshire police station on a date in April,” police said in a statement. Again, the police did not identify her by name, but did say a 43-year-old woman had been granted bail. Brooks is 43.

The sixth person, identified only as a 38-year-old man, remained in custody at a central London police station, police said.

The widening scandal has spawned three police investigations, two parliamentary committee investigations and an independent inquiry.

Brooks’ husband, racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks, was also arrested Tuesday, according to reports in Murdoch outlets, including the Wall Street Journal and Sky News. Charlie Brooks did not return a voice mail message from CNN on Tuesday.

He had been expected to attend the opening day of Britain’s Cheltenham horse racing festival Tuesday but was not seen there.

Rebekah Brooks, a former editor of the News of the World and the daily tabloid The Sun, served as chief executive of News International until she resigned days before her arrest in July.

Police investigating phone hacking say that about 5,800 people, including celebrities, crime victims, politicians and members of the British royal family, may have been targets of the practice by journalists.

The hacking involves illegally eavesdropping on voice mail by entering a personal identification number to access messages remotely.

Eurozone finance ministers called on Spain to make new cuts in its 2012 budget to reduce its deficit by another 0.5 per cent of economic output, a stinging rebuke to the new government of premier Mariano Rajoy, which publicly flaunted Brussels-imposed deficit targets less than two weeks ago.

Despite the new cuts, Madrid will still be allowed to breach a previously agreed deficit limit of 4.4 per cent of gross domestic product this year by nearly a full percentage point; its new target will be 5.3 per cent, according to a senior eurozone official.

But that is significantly below the 5.8 per cent Mr Rajoy announced unilaterally after a summit of European Union leaders this month, and Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister who chaired Monday night’s meeting of finance ministers, said Madrid had agreed to stick to a 2013 target of 3 per cent.

Olli Rehn, the EU’s most senior economic official, said the slight loosening of this year’s deficit target was driven by an unexpectedly high deficit last year — at 8.5 per cent, it came in 2.5 percentage points higher than previously expected — and a deepening recession in Spain that forced his staff to rethink the targets.

“The growth prospects for Spain have been weaker, and because of that it is sensible from the point of view of [balancing] the need to restore confidence in Spanish public finances and to return to sustainable growth,” Mr Rehn said at a news conference following the six-hour meeting.

Still, Spain’s decision to keep to the 3 per cent deficit target by next year will require a Herculean effort over the next 20 months on par with some of the most drastic austerity measures imposed on the eurozone’s three bail-out countries, Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

Mr Juncker said the economic impact of such rapid slashing was discussed at the gathering with Luis de Guindos, the Spanish economics minister. But in the end, Mr Juncker said sticking to the 3 per cent goal was essential to maintaining the credibility of new EU rules in effect since the start of the year intended to rein in spending in the eurozone’s most profligate countries.

“I am concerned by the high level of unemployment in Spain and increased poverty factors,” Mr Juncker said. “But we agreed tonight Spain would stick to the target. It will be the responsibility of the Spanish authorities to decided on the initiatives that need to be taken.”

According to a senior eurozone official, Mr Rehn’s staff presented the 5.3 per cent target for 2012 to senior national finance ministry officials in a “options note” presented during a private meeting on Friday. The finance ministers’ endorsement appears to diffuse, at least temporarily, a simmering row between Mr Rehn and Mr Rajoy over who has the authority to set national budget goals in countries under sanction for high deficit and debt levels.

Mr Rehn was also asked by eurozone finance ministers to prepare options for expanding the eurozone’s €500bn rescue fund by their next meeting, at the end of the month in Copenhagen. The request is the clearest sign yet that Germany, the last holdout, is prepared to increase the system’s total firepower to €750bn, and Mr Juncker predicted an increase would be agreed at the March 30 gathering.

If you look at China’s annual National People’s Congress, now in session, you might think this country is one of the richest in the world.

The NPC’s 75 richest legislators – from a total of 3,000 – had a net worth of more than $90 billion in 2011. To put that in perspective, that’s more than half of Greece’s latest bailout of some $170 billion.

Zong Qinghou is the NPC’s richest member and China’s second-richest man, with a net worth of nearly $10.8 billion in cash and assets. If you’ve been to China, you’ve likely eaten or drunk something his company, Wahaha Group, manufactures.

The firm’s red-and-white distilled water bottles are ubiquitous – sold on the grounds of the Forbidden City in Beijing to the altitudes of the Chinese Himalayas in Tibet.

Along with food and drink, the five richest NPC legislators have shown that China’s automobile and real estate industries are the sectors in which to make billions.

For more perspective on their wealth, compare NPC’s six dozen richest members to U.S. politicians. This group earned more than the net worth of the six hundred top politicians and lawmakers of the United States.

That includes President Barack Obama, his Cabinet, the 535 members of Congress, along with nine members of the Supreme Court. Their average declared net worth in 2010 was just $4.8 billion – a pittance compared to the NPC’s $90 billion.

Even the richest person in the U.S. Congress looks a modest earner compared with the NPC’s wealth. Representative Darrell Issa of California has a maximum net worth estimated at $700 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. If he were in China’s NPC, his ranking would fall forty notches.

The NPC is not the only major political meet-up happening in Beijing right now. The CPPCC – the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference – is also in full swing. The 70-odd richest legislators in this government advisory body, similar to the NPC, had a net worth of more than $100 billion in 2011.

And they’re apparently not afraid to flaunt the bling they can buy with those riches.

One legislator from an ethnic minority, often poorer than their Han Chinese counterparts, clutched an $800 Burberry handbag on the way to a CPPCC meeting this week. The Chairman of Evergrande, one of China’s biggest property companies, sported a $950 black Hermes belt – with a golden H. And another lady legislator cradled a Marc Jacobs bag on the way to this week’s work. Retail price? $10,000.

The annual per capita income for a Chinese citizen stands at about $2,400.

With images like those – which have gone viral on the web – many critics are wondering just how representative the “people’s” congress is of the people.

The answer? Perhaps not so much.

China’s trade deficit hit $31.5bn in February as exports slumped, underscoring concerns about slowing global demand and cooling growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

February exports from China fell 23.6 per cent from the previous month, and rose a slower-than-expected 18.4 per cent from the previous year. The fall in exports, combined with spectacularly strong imports as China bought commodities such as crude oil and iron ore, brought the trade deficit to its highest level in years.

China’s trade data, released on Saturday by the General Administration of Customs, is a key barometer for global growth and Chinese exports are closely linked to global demand for manufactured goods.

Economists said February’s weak exports, combined with cooling inflationary pressures, would prompt Beijing to hasten the pace of monetary easing to avoid a painful economic contraction.

Data released on Friday suggest that China’s growth is cooling, with fixed asset investment growth below historical average sales and car sales showing a decline from the previous year.

“Exports might not be terrible but they are still not strong,” said Ken Peng, economist at BNP Paribas. “It is still every much necessary that the policymakers in Beijing provide sufficient support for funding for investments in the coming period.”

While a 2008-style stimulus is unlikely, policymakers are expected to continue to cut banks reserve requirement ratios this year and possibly introduce fiscal stimulus.

China’s January and February data are distorted by the Chinese New Year holiday, which falls on different dates each year, causing big swings in economic statistics. Combining the January and February data, which removes some holiday distortions, paints a less grim picture: For the two months together exports rose 6.9 per cent from the previous year, while imports were up 7.7 per cent.

While China has come under criticism from the US for running a trade surplus, its vast purchases of commodities have greatly reduced the annual trade surplus in recent years.

China’s demand for raw materials was strong in February, with imports of crude oil hitting record highs of 5.95m barrels per day and copper imports surging 50 per cent by volume from the previous year. The value of February imports were up 39.6 per cent from the previous year and up 19 per cent from the previous month.

After helping to push through a Greek debt restructuring that is the largest in history, eurozone governments will revive a debate about boosting firewalls to shield Spain, Portugal and other vulnerable economies from the flames of the crisis.

Finance ministers from the 17-member club are set to discuss the issue at a meeting in Brussels on Monday evening, according to European Union officials, although no decisions are expected.

A leading option under consideration would be to combine the roughly €250bn remaining in the bloc’s temporary rescue fund due to expire next year — the European Financial Stability Facility — with its €500bn successor, the European Stability Mechanism.

But doing so would require the approval of Germany, which has been reluctant to increase its taxpayers’ exposure to unpopular bailouts.

The meeting will kick off a frenetic week in which member states will seek to return parliamentary approvals for a new €130bn Greek bailout that was tied to the debt restructuring.

The board of the International Monetary Fund will convene on Thursday to decide whether it will support the new bailout and — if so — how much money it will contribute.

On Friday, Christine Lagarde, the fund’s managing director, said she would recommend a €28bn contribution — a marked decrease from its recent participation in rescue loans for troubled eurozone countries.

A key question will be whether the fund deems that Greece’s debt will, in fact, be sustainable with the new bailout, which is expected to lower it to 120.5 per cent of gross domestic product by 2020. If not, then the IMF’s rules would prevent it from making further loans to Greece.

The IMF has become central to the debate over the adequacy of the eurozone’s bailout funds, which represent a key line of defence to prevent the crisis from spreading beyond Greece to the bloc’s core economies.

Ms Lagarde warned in January that fundamentally solvent countries such as Spain and Italy could be forced into a financing crisis without a credible bailout fund.

The US and other IMF shareholders have since balked at handing more money to the fund to fight the crisis until the eurozone governments first move to augment their own €500bn bailout arsenal.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, and many member states — particularly those in the line of fire — have also lobbied for months for an increase in those funds.

Several crisis-hit countries, including Italy, view such a move as a quid pro quo for going along with a German-backed treaty to restrain public finances and for instituting unpopular economic reforms.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, acknowledged his government had committed to discussing the matter in March, but then noted that there were 31 days in the month.

For Germany to increase its contribution chancellor Angela Merkel would have to seek approval form the Bundestag, where opposition to the bailouts has been fierce.

German officials believe that the recent calm that has prevailed in financial markets has lifted some of the immediate pressure to address the firewall.

They will be watching to see whether Italian and Spanish bond yields continue to fall in the wake of the European Central Bank’s campaign to extend hundreds of billions of euros in cheap loans.

The success of last week’s €206bn Greek debt swap, which has averted the prospect of a disorderly default by Athens — at least for now — could also improve sentiment.

Seven of Europe’s leading aviation companies have joined forces to warn the European Union’s plans to charge for carbon pollution are jeopardising 2,000 jobs and billions of dollars of orders from China.

Airbus and six large European airlines said the plan to bring global airlines into the EU emissions trading scheme for carbon dioxide, which the industry has steadfastly opposed, is creating an “intolerable” threat to the European aviation industry by opening up the possibility of trade battles with China, the US and Russia.

“[The ETS issue] started out as a discussion over environmental legislation but is turning into a trade conflict,” an Airbus spokesman said. According to Airbus and its airline partners in Europe, three state-owned Chinese airlines are refusing to finalise orders for 45 Airbus A330 long-haul jets worth up to $12bn.

Their argument was outlined in letters to European political leaders, including Britain’s David Cameron, Germany’s Angela Merkel, France’s François Fillon and Spain’s Mariano Rajoy . The campaign was orchestrated by Tom Enders, chief executive of Airbus, and backed by the chairmen or chief executives of British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa, Air France, Air Berlin and Iberia. The heads of Safran of France and MTU of Germany, two big makers of aerospace engines, also signed the letters.

The EU’s plan to regulate the output of carbon dioxide, as part of the effort to combat global warming, has stirred concern in the European aviation industry. Airbus — which employs more than 50,000 people across Europe — argues the proposals will damage competitiveness at a time of economic weakness, wants the EU to “put on hold” the extension of the scheme to airlines until a global plan for regulating carbon emissions by airlines can be agreed.

China, the US and other nations are concerned that the remit of Europe’s ETS will require airlines to pay a charge related to carbon emissions even when flying outside European airspace.

Airbus said three Chinese airlines — Air China, China Eastern and Hainan Airlines — had failed to finalise preliminary agreements to buy A330s because of Beijing’s unease over the ETS issue.

The industry executives also said they expect “suspensions, cancellations and punitive actions” by other countries to grow “as other important markets continue to oppose [the extension of] ETS”.

Airbus said half of the 2,000 jobs threatened by the stalled Chinese orders were located at its own plants in France, Germany, the UK and Spain, with the rest parts suppliers.

A spokesman for Connie Hedegaard, Europe’s climate commissioner, reiterated the bloc’s determination to press ahead with the scheme next year, but added the EU was “keen on exploring the different possibilities and flexibility that the legislation allows”.

Last week Wu Haidong, China’s ambassador to the EU, called the new ETS rules “hasty”. However, officials in Beijing have refrained from making public comments, saying the decision to buy Airbus aircraft is a commercial matter for Chinese airlines.

India will end a six-day ban on cotton exports that impacted global commerce, the country’s trade minister said Sunday.

The South Asian nation is the world’s second-largest producer of the commodity. Its March 5 ban aimed at boosting domestic supplies in light of a surging export surplus drew criticism from domestic farmers, political leaders and a key Chinese trade lobby.

“Keeping in view the facts, the interests of the farmers, interest of the industry” and other concerns, India’s group of ministers decided to roll back the ban, Trade Minister Anand Sharma said in a statement.

The prohibition had drawn flak from businesses in China, which is the biggest buyer of Indian cotton.

In a statement Thursday, the China Cotton Association called the ban an “irresponsible act” that ended “a large number of registered contracts” and “disturbed international cotton trade order seriously.”

As fury grew, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ordered a quick review of the decision.

U.S. cotton futures surged last week after India announced the ban, igniting fears of another jump in prices for cotton goods.

Officials in India explained they were concerned about a supply crunch in the country.

“This India development really caught the entire cotton industry and traders off guard because it came with no warning,” Phil Flynn, senior market and commodities analyst with PFG Best, told CNN last week.

Last year, when cotton prices hit an all-time high due to a global supply crunch, manufacturers first raised prices, then used less cotton and more blended fabrics such as poly-cotton.

Cotton prices cooled off toward the end of last year, Flynn said.

Convertibles are selling well at the Mercedes Benz dealership in Sendai in North Japan.

This seems odd, because Sendai is hardly the kind of place you imagine driving around with the top down. The temperature is in single-digits for five months of the year and it’s even colder if you drive towards coast.

Yet Tsutomu Ishihara, the president of Mercedes dealership Yanase Tohoku, says he sold 16 cars in August and September. In fact, most of his models are selling well, with business up 50% over a year ago.

He’s hardly alone. In the aftermath the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, business across Sendai is experiencing a reconstruction bounce. Thanks to an influx of construction workers, evacuees and government compensation money, Sendai has become the hub of Japan’s recovery economy, the outlier in the midst of struggling coastal towns that are just beginning to rebuild.

Beyond the influx of reconstruction funds, the disaster has helped open the purse strings of people in the afflicted areas. In the face of such much death, why save?

“The consumers’ mindset has changed after the quake,” Ishihara said. “People used to try not to spend so much and save money, but after the quake, (they) spend more on luxurious cars, also because the stock market and exchange market are not doing well now.”

Sendai is an exception. Japan saw its current account– the sum of inbound versus outbound trade — hit a record $5.4 billion deficit last month, according to government figures released Thursday. For Japan’s export-driven economy, it’s a change of fortune that underlines the economic troubles of the past year.

Analysts say much of Japan’s trade deficit comes from increased importation and prices for natural gas and oil, which has increased in use since much of the nation’s nuclear power supply has been taken offline.

Getting the auto industry back on the road

“One year on from the earthquake, Japan’s economy remains deeply affected by the disaster,” Takehide Kiuchi, chief economist of Nomura Securities, wrote in a recent research report.

Views of the potential economic impact at the time of the disaster “ranged from extremely optimistic to extremely pessimistic,” Kiuchi wrote, but both now seem wide of the mark. Darker expectations foresaw widespread civil unrest, wholesale layoffs among Japanese companies and a slump in consumer spending — none of which came to pass.

On the other hand, hopes that reconstruction would alleviate the twin forces that have been hurting the economy — the rising value of the yen and persistent deflation — did not occur, either, Kiuchi notes.

“Looking back at the progress made with reconstruction over this last year, we get a clear sense of the strength of Japan’s private sector,” Kiuchi said. “Japanese companies have shown amazing speed in addressing the supply chain problems that have arisen, particularly in the auto part sector, and these issues have been brought to a swift resolution.”

The government response, however, is another story.

“In contrast to the great efforts made by the private sector, the response of the authorities has left much unresolved,” Kiuchi said. “In the aftermath of the earthquake, the ruling and opposition parties were expected to form a government of national unity, but this never came to fruition.”

Japanese PM says ‘many lessons learned’

One of Japan’s wealthiest men and the founder of retailer Uniqlo, Tadashi Yanai, feels the events of March 11 served as a wakeup call to the Japanese about the precarious state of the economy. “We spend double of what we make. Our administrative structure is the most inefficient in the world. This cannot continue,” he said.

He hopes the rebuilding will not be a return to the old ways, but an opportunity to reform the government and make Japan’s economy more integrated with the outside world.

Still, in Sendai, business is booming. Builder Noburu Sato describes the non-stop calls from people who need to rebuild their homes. “Honestly speaking, I developed a heart problem in the beginning, because I got so many calls,” he says. “My phone didn’t stop ringing.”

Before the earthquake, many of his competitors had left the construction industry. Now, the only limiting factor is workers, who are coming from as far as Kobe or Nigata in pursuit of work. Builders say there is enough work to last them ten years.

One man’s battle to revive the fishing industry

The recovery workers, from laborers to construction executives, are also spending, bringing business for Sendai’s hotels, bars and restaurants. The manager of a capsule hotel in downtown Sendai says his business is twice what it was a year ago, with no shortage of men willing to pay around $45 to use the baths and occupy a tiny room for the night.

Many say there is also a change in attitude towards spending, with locals flocking to luxury stores in a way they didn’t see before the quake. Sales at large retail stores were up 10% last quarter. “We used to think, ‘let’s wait’ even though we wanted to buy,” says one shopper, carrying a bag from Louis Vuitton. “But after such experience we learned that such an idea was no use.”

China intends to extend renminbi loans to other Brics nations, in another step towards the internationalisation of its currency.

The China Development Bank will sign a memorandum of understanding in New Delhi with its Brazilian, Russian, Indian and South African counterparts on March 29, say people familiar with their talks. Under the agreement CDB, which lends mainly in dollars overseas, will make renminbi loans available, while the other Brics nations’ development banks will also extend loans denominated in their respective currencies.

The initiative aims to boost trade between the five nations and promote use of the renminbi, rather than US dollar, for international trade and cross-border lending. Under 13 per cent of China’s Asia trade is transacted in renminbi, according to Helen Qiao, chief Asia economist for Morgan Stanley. HSBC estimates that the currency’s share of regional trade could swell to up to 50 per cent by 2015.

BNDES, Brazil’s development bank with a loan book about four times the size of that of the World Bank, and South Africa’s finance ministry said they expected a master agreement to be signed in New Delhi that would include the lending pledge, with details to be ironed out during a summit.

“We will discuss the creation of structures and mechanisms for lending in local currencies in order to maximise economic and financial transactions between the countries that are members of the accord,” BNDES said.

CDB declined to comment. Other signatories will include Russia’s Vnesheconombank, Export-Import Bank of India and the Development Bank of Southern Africa.

Representatives of the five nations called for a broader-based international currency system in a communiqué issued after a meeting in China in April.

While the US dollar has recently strengthened, many governments believe it will weaken over the longer term and want alternatives, other than the tarnished euro, to use for trade and investment. CDB recently extended a $30bn loan to Petróleos de Venezuela, the state company, half of which will be repaid in oil.

Walk into a room on the 17th floor of Copenhagen’s Bella Sky Hotel and you’ll be greeted by soft rose and burgundy toned colors, fresh flowers, fruit smoothies, fashion magazines, and a bathroom stocked with exclusive products, including day and night moisturizers.

This might not sound all that appealing to Joe in accounting — but that’s okay because he’ll never make it past the locked glass entrance to the floor.

This is the Bella Donna — Europe’s first hotel floor dedicated entirely to women — and according to the hotel’s CEO Arne Bang Mikkelsen, it is designed by women, for women.

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“Men’s and women’s preferences are very different. When men come into a hotel room, the first thing they do is check the view, turn on the TV, plug in their computer, and check out the minibar. Women on the other hand go straight for the bathroom. Does it smell nice? Is it clean? Does it have a nice bathtub and shower?”

To get it right, the hotel asked a number of women what they wanted, and added to their list of priorities things like cleanliness, a nice bathroom, high-powered hairdryers, steam irons, cosmetic mirrors, healthy options on the room service menus, and full-body mirrors.

Judy Brownell, professor and dean of students at the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, says the hotel is onto something. According to her research, women’s hotel preferences are very different than men’s with key priorities being to feel safe, comfortable, empowered, and valued.

“The problem is that in many cases, no action has been taken to meet women’s needs,” she says.

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Michelle Williams, event coordinator with Ernst & Young and guest at the Bella Donna floor agrees. “Unlike other hotels, it seemed like someone actually thought about what women wanted. And there are so many women in my type of role traveling around the globe — hotels need to wake up to that a bit.”

It seems they are — helped along by the boom in female business travelers.

Global numbers are hard to come by but research cited in Brownell’s Cornell University report shows women accounting for nearly half of all business travelers in the U.S. in 2010, up from approximately 25% in 1991 — and less than 5% just 40 years ago.

Places like the Naumi Hotel in Singapore, the Premier Hotel in New York, The London Dukes Hotel and the Georgian Court Hotel in Canadian Vancouver, seem to be realizing the potential in catering for women.

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The Georgian Court Hotels says their Orchid Floor — with its special offerings for women such as magazines, curling irons, nylon stockings, bath salts and yoga mats — has been so successful they’re considering adding a second floor.

At the London Dukes Hotel, management says bookings to their “Duchess Rooms” — which are standard rooms with fresh flowers, fruit, styling accessories, and other extras added — have surged 25% over the past year.