July 14 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the business pages of British newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

The Times

• Diamond producer De Beers plans to pause production at its Venetia mine in South Africa for two years, it said, as part of a broader push to streamline operations and cut costs to weather continued weakness in the rough diamond trade.

• AkzoNobel AKZO.AS has received multiple proposals from Nippon Paint 4612.T to buy its decorative paints business valuing the business at €7.5 billion ($8.54 billion), it said.

The Guardian

• Volkswagen VOWG_p.DE may need to cut about 50,000 extra jobs to keep up with rivals in an increasingly fierce car market, its CEO told staff in an internal memo.

• AGC Chemicals Europe is consulting with employees and their union representatives about plans to cease operations at its manufacturing plant in Lancashire.

The Telegraph

• Tom Blomfield, the founder of online bank Monzo, has become the latest high-profile figure to join Anthropic.

• Britain’s grid operator has launched an independent investigation into claims that staff covered up system failures that could have led to blackouts.

Sky News

• Britain's Spire Healthcare SPI.L chair Ian Cheshire will step down in the coming months and could be replaced by one of the company's existing non-executive directors.

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