Vodafone Share News (VOD)

Booming commodity prices spurred BHP Billiton to announce last night that it will return $10bn to shareholders and invest $80bn in new mines over the next five years.Profits at the global mining group beat expectations to hit a record $10.5bn in the first half of 2010, a 72% rise on the same period the year before, owing to the soaring cost of iron ore, copper and oil. BHP said that it was embarking on an $80bn capital spending programme to replace ageing mines and strengthen its grip on the global supply of raw materials, securing fresh sites for iron ore, in particular, the Times reports.Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, insisted prices are being driven higher by "temporary" forces as the official inflation rate surged to double the target, increasing pressure to raise interest rates. Mervyn King repeated his warning that the government's measure of how fast prices are rising, the consumer prices index (CPI), could hit 5% "over the next few months", after figures showed it climbed 4% in the year to January, the Telegraph reports.Barclays is bracing for a lawsuit from shareholders of the food giant Del Monte, after a US judge ruled that the bank "secretly and selfishly manipulated" the sale of the company in order to jack up its own fees. Del Monte's board agreed last year to a $4bn takeover bid from private equity groups led by KKR, but a shareholder vote to approve the deal, which was supposed to take place yesterday, had to be adjourned amid controversy, the Independent reports.Meanwhile, Bob Diamond, new chief executive of Barclays, vowed to "eliminate or improve" the third of the bank's business that is underperforming in an attempt to nearly double profitability over the next three years. Mr Diamond outlined the plans as the bank announced a 32% rise in pre-tax profits in 2010 to £6.1bn, the FT reports.The World Bank has given a stark warning of the impact of the rising cost of food, saying an estimated 44m people had been pushed into poverty since last summer by soaring commodity prices. Robert Zoellick, the Bank's president, said food prices had risen by almost 30% in the past year and were within striking distance of the record levels reached during 2008, the Guardian reports.Nine former directors of the failed Christmas hamper business Farepak could be barred from running any company again after the Insolvency Service began formal disqualification proceedings. The directors include Sir Clive Thompson, former head of Rentokil Initial, and Neil Gillis, the outgoing chief executive of Blacks Leisure. Disqualification is the strongest disciplinary tool company regulators can use and it has rarely been wielded against such prominent businessmen. The Insolvency Service concluded that the nine were unfit to be involved in running any company after concluding an investigation into the Farepak collapse, the Times reports.Vodafone has criticised Apple's plan to take a 30% cut of the cash consumers spend on newspaper subscriptions for their iPads. Vittorio Colao, chief executive, said he was "concerned" about the "walled garden" Apple appears to be creating around iPad content. Apple yesterday told newspaper and magazine publishers that they must allow customers to buy newspaper subscriptions through Apple's iTunes store. In the past content providers, such as The Financial Times and The Times, have been able to circumvent Apple's payment system, through which the Californian company takes a 30% cut of all downloads, the Telegraph reports.