LONDON (ShareCast) - French oil giant Total has warned against drilling for oil in the Arctic, the FT reports. Christophe de Margerie, Total’s chief executive, told the Financial Times the risk of an oil spill in such an environmentally sensitive area was simply too high. 'Oil on Greenland would be a disaster,' he said in an interview. 'A leak would do too much damage to the image of the company.'

With two parties in government, there are twice as many opportunities for ministers to toss out hare-brained schemes to the conference faithful on how to promote growth, suggests Ian King, the Business Editor at The Times. Most never get off the ground, King believes. He suggests the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, should widen the scope of plans for a 'patent box' to include software, a sector in which the UK is historically strong. The sector is largely excluded because it uses other forms of intellectual property to win commercial protection. King notes that Aveva, the engineering software supplier and 'an unsung hero of the sector', says that, with the grants it receives locally, it can effectively open a new office in China at no cost.

Switzerland’s central bank has become a conduit for vast flows of capital into German Bunds and other haven bonds, exacerbating the Eurozone’s North-South divide, the Telegraph reports, citing a report by debt-ratings agency Standard & Poor's. The Swiss National Bank had bought €80bn (£64bn) of German, Dutch, French, Finnish and Austrian bonds this year to counter a flood of money entering the country and hold the franc at 1.20 to the euro.

The Independent reports that Silvio Berlusconi, the former Prime Minister of Italy, is back with an attack on the Germans. In one of the few interviews he has given since stepping down, Berlusconi called Germany a "hegemonic state that is dictating rules on discipline and austerity to other European countries".

JH

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