A roundup of today's other news stories in brief
Sky to add Channel 4 to its TV service
A long-standing impediment to Sky expanding its presence in Ireland has disappeared with news that Channel 4 is to be added to its service in the Republic.
Channel 4 will now occupy position 142 on the electronic programming guide that forms part of Sky's digital satellite television service.
Aer Lingus to seek work changes
An Aer Lingus document circulated to unions yesterday outlines a range of work practices the airline's management wants to change by February 1st.
The document claims that long holidays are enjoyed by some staff and practices like some workers finishing work after less than six hours are common among certain grades. Unions are likely to reject the claims.
Meanwhile, the deadline has passed for Aer Lingus shareholders to submit acceptances in relation to Ryanair's €1.4 billion bid.
Ryanair will today reveal the number of acceptances, but the figure is expected to be small.
Redundancies rise in November
The number of redundancies registered with to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment in November was 2,077, bringing the total for the year to December to 21,603. The cumulative figure at the end of November is 0.5 per cent higher than in 2005.
BT links up with Setanta
BT Group will spend more than £100 million (€149 million) in the coming year to launch its broadband television service, investing in equipment, sports rights and cut-price films.
The group unveiled a series of partnerships for the BT Vision service yesterday, headlined by an agreement with Setanta to show 46 live Premier League matches.
BT says it cannot introduce such a service to Ireland because of local loop unbundling.
It hopes to challenge British Sky Broadcasting, NTL, Freeview and video stores with on-demand films, music videos, children's programmes and a TV catch-up service. - (Financial Times service)
Element Six posts $9m operating loss
Shannon-based industrial diamond manufacturing company Element Six suffered an operating loss of $9 million (€6.75 million) last year, according to accounts returned to the Companies Office.
Last August, the company - formerly de Beers - announced 75 job losses as part of a restructuring programme. In 2004, the company enjoyed a profit of $28 million, but last year, this became a $9 million loss after a significant rise in "administration costs".
Bank of New York, Mellon merger
Bank of New York and Mellon Financial yesterday unveiled a merger to create a $43 billion (€32 billion) security services and asset management giant that could trigger further consolidation in the global custody industry.The merger creates the world's biggest asset servicing business. - (Financial Times service)
Drug firms to face more scrutiny in US
The safety concerns that doomed a Pfizer cholesterol drug will lead to more US scrutiny of similar medicines in development, a senior US Food and Drug Administration official said.
Pfizer said on Saturday it was scrapping development of the cholesterol drug torcetrapib, because of increased deaths and heart problems among patients who took the product in a trial. - (Reuters)
