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Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is demanding tougher anti-corruption efforts amid a huge political scandal over a now-suspended Politburo member whose wife has been named a suspect in the murder of a British businessman.

Wen’s message, published Monday, differed little from previous calls to fight endemic corruption. But it comes amid a nationwide drive to support the Communist Party’s decision to oust Bo Xilai from key positions and launch an investigation into what are described as serious breaches in discipline.

Media reports have raised questions about whether he tried to abuse his power to quash the investigation into his wife, Gu Kailai. Gu and a household employee are being investigated over the suspected murder of the Briton Neil Heywood.

There also have been strong suspicions that Bo, 62, grew fabulously wealthy through his ability to approve investments and make political appointments, although he has not been directly accused of any graft.

Wen wrote in an essay published in the party’s main theoretical journal, Qiushi, that despite a series of measures enacted to curb corruption, greater determination and more effective anti-corruption tools are still needed.

Greater transparency and a reduction in the concentration of powers among some government departments is also needed to allow effective citizen supervision, Wen said.

“We need to deeply acknowledge that the greatest threat to the ruling party is corruption,” Wen wrote.

Wen did not mention Bo by name or refer to the case directly. However, Wen has been the only top official to speak publicly about the matter, saying at his annual news conference last month that Chongqing officials need to understand its seriousness and put their house in order.

Also Monday, party newspaper Guangming Daily published the latest in a series of state media editorials calling on readers to support action against Bo and his wife and not to believe speculation that the politician’s sidelining is linked to infighting among top leaders.

“Handling the serious breach of discipline is a measures embraced by the whole of the party and so-called ‘inner-party conflict’ has nothing to do with it,” the editorial said.

Bo was once considered a leading candidate for the party’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee when seven new members are expected to be picked at a party congress in the fall, in the first step in a generational handover of power to younger leaders.

However, his removal as Chongqing’s Party Secretary on March 15 and suspension of his membership in the Politburo last week have effectively ended his political prospects and he could face trial no fax payday advance.

A leaked transcript of a party official’s briefing on the Bo matter, widely reported last month on Chinese online news sites, said that Bo’s former police chief accused him of trying to halt an investigation into a family member, although the statement did not specify which member or for what crime. State media has since promised a thorough investigation into Bo, stressing that no one is above the law and no party member can interfere with police investigations.

Bo is the first Politburo member to be removed from office in five years and the scandal kicked up rumors of a political struggle involving Bo supporters intent on derailing succession plans calling Vice President Xi Jinping to lead the party for the next decade. Such allegations are fed by the same secrecy, political privilege and lack of outside supervision that are blamed for making high-level corruption such a major problem.

Efforts to require leading officials to declare their assets have found little traction while rules prohibiting officials and their family members from using political connections for personal gain are routinely flouted.

Bo was fired after Chongqing’s former chief of police, Wang Lijun, made an extraordinary visit to the U.S. consulate in the southwestern city of Chongqing in early February. Wang is believed to have expressed his suspicions about the November death of Heywood to the Americans, who then tipped-off British diplomats who formally requested that China further investigate. The party last week said Heywood previously had a close business relationship with Gu and the couple’s son, Bo Guagua, who attended schools in Britain, but that the ties had recently soured.

Wang was taken into custody and flown to Beijing after leaving the consulate on Feb. 6 and has not been heard from since. Bo and Gu are believed to be under some form of detention in Beijing but no details have been released on the state of the investigation or a possible trial.

Asked Monday about the Heywood case, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said that it was being handled under Chinese law but would take time to investigate fully.

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TORONTO

Consumers have become accustomed to lots of choice for entertainment and information services. Music and movie services offer single downloads and a range of subscription models, while newspapers and magazines sell their content as individual issues or subscriptions on multiple platforms.

Yet Canadian cable and satellite providers remain a stubborn holdout. The broadcast community has long resisted a market-oriented approach that would allow consumers to exercise real choice in their cable and satellite packages, instead demanding a corporate welfare regulatory framework that guarantees big profits and mediocre programming. That could change if the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has the courage to push back against Bell Media in a major case involving the terms of broadcast distribution.

The case pits Canada

Ford Motor Co. is raising its forecast for U.S. auto sales this year, citing improving consumer confidence, employment, low interest rates and other factors.

Ford’s Americas President Mark Fields said Wednesday that the company now expects full-year U.S. sales in the range of 14.5 million to 15 million. That’s up from 13.5 million to 14.5 million at the beginning of this year.

“We had been planning for industry sales to improve to this level, but it has happened a bit sooner than we planned,” Fields said guaranteed approval cash loans.

Fields said Ford will likely lose market share because it won’t make enough vehicles to satisfy demand. The company may add production capacity in the fourth quarter, he said.

Automakers posted their best monthly sales since 2007 in March, with 1.4 million vehicles sold.

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Private companies continued to add jobs in March, albeit at a slightly slower pace than in February.

Businesses added 209,000 jobs in March, according to a report issued Wednesday by payroll-processing company ADP. Those job gains were slightly lower than forecasts for 217,000, and marked a slowdown from 230,000 private sector jobs added in February.

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Obama battles job crisis

Before Obama even took office, America had lost 4.4 million jobs. Track his progress since then.

Strong jobs data throughout the winter has been partially attributed to unseasonably warm weather, which allows some firms — in construction, for example — to remain fully operational during colder months. Once that effect fades, economists are bracing for weaker job creation.

But Wednesday’s report showed no sign of a sharp slowdown.

"Today’s number doesn’t show such a weakening," said Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers payday advance. "It’s pretty much in line with the last several months of increases."

The economy needs about 125,000 new jobs each month just to keep the unemployment rate steady. To fully dig out of the jobs hole left by the financial crisis, it needs far more.

Will we ever see 5% unemployment again?

Prakken forecasts that it could take another three or four years for the unemployment rate to fall back to a pre-recession level of around 5%.

"I’m pleased with today’s number, but I’m left with this concern that we aren’t stepping up to the next level," Prakken said. "We would need 300,000 or 400,000 in order to push the unemployment rate down as people jump back into the labor force."

Small businesses continued to drive job growth in March, according to ADP.

Companies with fewer than 50 employees made up about half of all private sector job gains, hiring 100,000 people.

Large companies with 500 or more employees hired 22,000 new workers, and medium-sized businesses added 87,000 to their payrolls.

Check the unemployment rate in your state

The ADP report typically sets the tone for the government’s highly anticipated monthly jobs report, due Friday. While the reports tend to show the same trends over the long term, their figures can diverge from month to month.

Economists surveyed by CNNMoney expect the Labor Department’s data to show 200,000 jobs added in March, including 210,000 from the private sector and a loss of 10,000 government jobs. 

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A credit card hack attack on Global Payments is hitting the headlines. Here are answers to some of the key questions it raises.

What happened in the Global Payments breach?

Global Payments, a company that processes card transactions, discovered an unauthorized intrusion into its servers in early March. The company says it "promptly" notified others in the industry. It didn’t publicly announce the breach until Friday.

The breach affects all major credit and debit card brands, because Global Payments is one link in the long chain involved in card transactions.

When a customer swipes a credit card, the data is sent to a payment processor like Global Payments, which coordinates the steps involved in authorizing the charge and submitting the transaction details to card networks like Visa (, Fortune 500) and MasterCard (, Fortune 500). It’s a quick but complicated process, with lots of players in the mix.

What kind of information was stolen? What can the hackers do with it?

Global Payments () released a statement late Sunday saying that around 1.5 million card numbers may have been compromised. That’s a big breach, but the odds are good that your card wasn’t among them. There are more than 1 billion credit and debit cards currently in circulation in the U.S., according to the Nilson Report, an industry trade publication.

Card numbers were stolen, but that’s all the thieves got fast cash online. Cardholder names, addresses and Social Security numbers were not affected, according to Global Payments.

That’s good news. Stolen numbers can be used create to fraudulent cards, but they’re not enough for full-fledged identity theft.

Global Payments is still investigating how the breach happened. The U.S. Secret Service has launched its own inquiry.

What does this mean for me? Should I be worried?

While the threat of a compromised card is upsetting, customers should sit tight. If your card issuer thinks your account may have been compromised, they’ll contact you. Some may need to reissue credit cards or take other steps to contain the damage.

No matter what, you’re not liable for unauthorized charges made on your account.

As Visa (, Fortune 500) put it in a response to the Global Payments debacle: "It’s important for U.S. Visa consumer cardholders to know they are protected against fraudulent purchases with Visa’s zero liability fraud protection policy, which exceeds federal safeguards. As always, Visa encourages cardholders to regularly monitor their accounts and to notify their issuing financial institution promptly of any unusual activity." 

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AstraZeneca PLC says it has won a judgment in a U.S. court protecting its patent on the extended release version of Seroquel, its blockbuster drug for treating bipolar disorder.

AstraZeneca said Friday that U.S. District Court in New Jersey upheld the formulation patent for Seroquel XR, which expires in 2017.

The company said the court also ruled that Anchen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Osmotica Pharmaceutical Corp., Torrent Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Torrent Pharma Inc., Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc saving account payday loan. and Mylan Inc. have infringed the patent.

AstraZeneca has also been fighting legal battles to protect its patent on quetiapine, the active ingredient in Seroquel, which expires in December. Seroquel is the company’s second-largest-selling brand, accounting for 17 percent of sales last year.

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Scotland Yard’s communications chief resigned Thursday, the third senior police figure to part with his job over the force’s failure to come to grips with Britain’s phone hacking scandal.

Dick Fedorcio stepped down after the force decided he would face disciplinary proceedings over a contract awarded to a former executive at Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World tabloid. The Independent Police Complaints Commission ruled that Fedorcio had to answer questions over the decision to hire Neil Wallis, the former News of the World executive later arrested on suspicion of breaking into voicemails.

The links between senior members of the News of the World and Scotland Yard have come under particularly close scrutiny because both organizations insisted for years that there was no evidence of widespread phone hacking at the tabloid.

Those assurances fell apart after it emerged that journalists at the paper routinely broke into the phones of celebrities and other public figures to score scoops or get leverage. Three parallel police inquiries, a cascade of lawsuits, and a judge-led inquiry have since lifted the lid on a host of illegal practices, from large-scale bribery to computer hacking no fax cash advance.

The scandal’s fallout has shaken Britain’s establishment. The News of the World has been shut, the country’s press watchdog has been scrapped, and dozens of journalists, executives, and public officials have either resigned, been suspended or been arrested over their role in the scandal.

Among them are former Scotland Yard chief Paul Stephenson and ex-Assistant Commissioner John Yates, both of whom resigned in July. Fedorcio’s decision was announced Thursday, but he’d been on extended leave since August.

Politicians also have been drawn into the scandal. Kit Malthouse, London’s deputy mayor for policing and crime, was asked why he had challenged police about the resources they were pouring into the phone hacking investigation.

Malthouse, called before the judge-led inquiry on Thursday, defended his skepticism, saying that the phone hacking investigation is projected to draw in some 200 people by 2013.

“That’s the equivalent of eight murder squads,” he said.

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Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda

A former MF Global executive is contradicting testimony from Jon Corzine, saying the former senator ordered the transfer of $200 million out of a customer account days before the firm collapsed, according to an e-mail obtained by congressional investigators.

Edith O’Brien, the former assistant treasurer, says Corzine ordered the money shifted to one of the firm’s bank accounts overseas, according to a memo that cited the e-mail.

A House Financial Services subcommittee released the memo Friday in advance of a hearing Wednesday. O’Brien has been subpoenaed to testify.

In December, Corzine told the panel: “I did not instruct anyone to lend customer funds to MF Global or any of its affiliates.” Corzine also said he didn’t know about “the use of customer funds on any loan or transfer.”

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