BP Share News (BP.)

The euro slid to a two-month low against the dollar, trading at $1.31, and to 84p against sterling as traders turned their attention to other fiscally enfeebled EU countries after the €85bn bailout of Ireland. Yields on Spanish government bonds hit their highest level since the introduction of the euro, compared with less than 4% early last month. Implied borrowing costs on Italian debt also rose, while the cost of insuring Portuguese government debt against default soared to an all-time high, the Times reports.Billions of euros of EU funds to promote growth in Europe's rundown regions are lying idle because cash-strapped national governments cannot find the necessary matching funds to release the money. Internal documents from the European Commission, obtained by the Financial Times, show that the EU has paid out only 10% of €347bn allocated by its flagship fund up to 2013, more than halfway through its seven-year spending cycle.Consumer confidence deteriorated sharply over the past month, slumping to the lowest level since February last year, when Britain was still in the depths of the recession. The overall level of consumer sentiment dropped to a four-month low of minus 21, compared with minus 19 in October, according to data from GfK NOP. The gauge of people's confidence about their personal finances over the next year dropped by five points to minus 7, the lowest level in 21 months, the Times reports.Connaught's auditors are under investigation for their conduct in the run-up to the collapse of the housing services group in September. The Accountancy & Actuarial Discipline Board said it had opened an inquiry into the oversight by PricewaterhouseCoopers of Connaught's most recent accounts, for the year that ended on August 31, 2009. Also under examination will be the conduct of an unspecified number of individual auditors, the Times reports.The US Attorney General has confirmed that the Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation related to Wall Street trading. Eric Holder said an "investigation is ongoing" into insider trading, describing it as "very serious". "I don't want to get into the details," he said, before adding that the investigation is being conducted by the US attorney's office in New York, the Telegraph reports.A radical relaxation of Britain's corporation tax regime was signalled by the Chancellor, George Osborne, in his autumn statement yesterday. New rules on controlled foreign companies (CFCs) and the so-called "patent box" will, ministers hope, stem the flow of businesses relocating to friendlier tax regimes, especially to Dublin, the Independent reports.Banking will be targeted in the next batch of WikiLeaks releases, the website's founder, Julian Assange, has said. Mr Assange said that he planned to publish a major leak exposing a "big US bank" early next year, uncovering "flagrant violations" that "could take down a bank or two", the Independent reports.BP has risked further anger from environmental groups by committing to the development of its Canadian oil sands project, calling it 'a significant milestone' for the company. BP, which owns 50% of the Sunrise oil sands project in northern Alberta but will spend the first $2.5bn on the scheme, said it was "a significant milestone" for the company. It added that the development represented a "40-year secure and stable source of production for North America", the Telegraph reports.Wal-Mart has scaled back its bid for full control of the South African chain Massmart, confirming its intention to make an all-cash offer for 51% of the company. The American discount chain said in September that it wanted full control, but it has revised that plan amid concerns raised by investors, particularly some emerging market funds, that did not want Massmart to lose its stock market listing in Johannesburg, the Times reports.