A round=up of today's other business news in brief ...
North broadband funds announced
Funding aimed at improving broadband services in rural areas across Northern Ireland has been announced.
Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster announced that investments worth £177,000, in the form of financial assistance through the £1.9 million Broadband Fund, have been awarded to North West Electronics and Net 1 Ltd.
The Broadband Fund is co- financed under the European Regional Development Fund Sustainable Competitiveness Programme 2007-2013.
Talks to buy UK "Independent" denied
The chief of the London Independent newspaper titles has rejected suggestions by Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev, owner of the the Evening Standard in London, that he was in talks to buy the titles from Independent News Media (INM).
Simon Kelner told the Guardian that reports in Media Week that Mr Lebedev met last week INM chief Gavin O’Reilly were wrong.
Mr Kelner said there were “no ongoing ownership discussions” between the parties
Initial Dragon testing completed.
Dublin-based oil and gas company Dragon Oil said it has completed initial testing of its Dzheitune (Lam) 28/136 development well in Turkmenistan.
In a statement, the firm said the well was drilled to 3,075 metres and that initial testing of the long and short strings resulted in production rates of 1,841 bopd and 1,450 bopd, respectively, with further testing and optimisation scheduled to take place over the coming weeks.
