A round-up of today's other stories in brief...
Bombardier opens £1.5m Belfast facility
Bombardier Aerospace has opened its new £1.5 million (€2.2 million) repair and maintenance facility in Belfast. The 50,000sq ft facility is based in the city's Titanic Quarter.
Emirates, UPS, British Airways, BMI and Icelandair are among the major airlines supported by the facility. It has also won contracts with Continental Airlines and Cathay Pacific.
Commission drive to cut red tape
The European Commission has put forward a proposal to cut red tape for companies by a quarter by 2012.
The initiative could lead to an increase of 1.5 per cent in EU gross domestic product and more investment for growth and new jobs amounting to €150 billion, a strategic review of the commission's Better Regulation Initiative has revealed. The drive is aimed at simplifying administrative procedures. It works by assessing existing and new legislation to ensure it does not impose unnecessary tasks on firms.
Greyhound tote betting up 11%
The 2007 Irish Greyhound Review was launched by Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism John O'Donoghue yesterday.
Tote betting, the key revenue generator for the greyhound industry, was up 11 per cent in 2005, he said.
Attendances were up 3 per cent, reaching 1.4 million. Prize-money allocations came to €11.3 million, with race sponsorship up 6 per cent to €1.9 million. For the year to date in 2006, tote figures were up 1 per cent with attendances on a par with 2005.
Tullow announces Ugandan oil find
Tullow Oil yesterday said its partner Hardman Resources had encountered oil in its latest exploration well in Uganda.
The company, which has a 50 per cent stake in the Ugandan project, said the Nzizi-1 exploration well had been drilled to a depth of 1,065m and that oil had been encountered across all the target intervals.
Analysts welcomed the data, saying it was likely to bring added confidence that a cluster of oil discoveries had been made in the area.
US election result 'could help Doha'
The chance of successfully concluding the so-called Doha round of World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations still hangs in the balance but could benefit from last week's US congressional elections, former WTO boss and Goldman Sachs International chairman Peter Sutherland said in a speech in London yesterday.
He called on US and EU governments to renew their commitment and said aiming for realistic objectives would increase the chances of success.
