Current Account: Not content with a dominant position in the Irish media and a growing presence in Britain, South Africa and India, Sir Anthony O'Reilly's Independent News & Media looks set to ramp up its presence in Australia.
All that stands between Independent and this objective is the imminent reform of stringent media ownership rules that restrict the activities of foreign-owned groups in the Australian media sector.
How helpful, then, that the Australian prime minister, John Howard, will pay Sir Anthony a friendly visit on Tuesday week when he comes to Dublin.
The prime minister and the knight are old pals so nothing less than a full briefing on the rule changes will be on the cards. Convenient is not the word.
Separately, Rupert Murdoch revealed this week that he will host a fundraiser in July for the re-election campaign of New York senator Hillary Clinton.
Murdoch is an avowed conservative and his considerable media interests in the US have never shied in the past from attacking Mrs Clinton and her husband Bill, the former president. He must think Mrs Clinton is going places.
Blackrock name has all the right associations
Fyffes property spin-off Blackrock makes its market debut on Monday, at which point its critics will be silenced or vindicated. But Current Account is happy in the meantime to clear up one mystery - the last-minute name change from Bluestone to Blackrock.
Fyffes, whose controlling shareholders are the McCann family, had registered the name Bluestone - which is a type of Devonian sandstone used in, amongst other things, the construction of Stonehenge - back in 1999 when it first toyed with the idea of spinning-off the properties.
But the project only got off the ground last year. Imagine the surprise of Fyffes executives when, during a trip to the UK, they saw hoardings for a UK property plc of the same name.
Hence the origins of Blackrock, which sources point out is a town in the McCann's native Louth as well as a being posh Dublin suburb. It also shares a name with a rugby-playing school whose past pupils are liberally sprinkled throughout the stockbroking and investment industry.
No doubt the new name will help to keep the fledgling plc on their radar.
Delay not so costly
Tensions may be easing in the row between Shell and the Corrib protesters. Former Ictu boss Peter Cassells is trying to get a mediation process going again and the publication of the Advantica report has given everyone some food for thought.
No doubt the Shell to Sea campaign and the Rossport Five can claim credit for standing up to the fourth-largest company in the world. But just how much damage have they actually done to Royal Dutch Shell Group financially?
The Corrib field, which is marginally smaller than Kinsale, still hasn't come ashore, so surely that is their biggest victory. Well, maybe not. Back in 1996, when the field was first discovered, gas was selling at 20p per therm. Since then there has been almost a decade of opposition to the project.
But in the meantime gas prices have risen to new highs of 70-80p per therm. If Shell had not faced protests and thus managed to bring the gas ashore much earlier, it would have made a lot less money than it is likely to make over the next few years as gas prices settle around the 70p per therm mark. So who ultimately wins?
American optimism
The new head of the Garda Inspectorate, Kathleen O'Toole, told The Irish Times yesterday that she was not as familiar with the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, as reports in her local paper, the Boston Globe, would have people believe.
Current Account can only agree. In the same interview, she pointed out that the Garda was recruiting rather than cutting back, while Boston had actually lost officers.
She clearly thinks recruiting gardaí is a good thing, but it's not clear if she realises that some recruitment plans, namely the Garda Reserve, are a source of friction between the force and the Minister.
