Siemens wins nod for Westinghouse buy Siemens AG said on Friday the US department of justice had given the go-ahead to the German group's acquisition of Westinghouse Power Generation. "I welcome the prompt completion of the anti-trust reviews... We intend to complete this acquisition as soon as other prerequisites have been met," Adolf Huettl, Siemens board member and president of the Power Generation Group, said in a statement.

BA says London Gatwick traffic to rise 60%

: British Airways Plc said on Friday it expected its traffic at London Gatwick to rise by 60 per cent to 12 million passengers a year by 2008, thanks to development of the airport as its second biggest hub after Heathrow.

Esso says Australia gas plant back to normal

Esso Australia Ltd said on Saturday its natural gas processing plant in Victoria state, which had been supplying only 75 per cent of demand for two days because of an ice blockage, was running normally again. Theplant, which can handle close to 30 million cubic metres a day, was satisfying demand of about 17 million cubic metres a day on Saturday.

Casino to buy into Uruguay chain

French company Casino Geant is negotiating to buy 50 per cent of Uruguayan supermarket chain Disco SA, a Disco official said on Friday. "We are still negotiating, but that's the way it's going," the official said. Uruguayan newspaper El Pais reported on Friday that Casino Geant was about to pay $120 million to Disco to expand an existing joint-venture and fund an expansion.

Northwest Airlines pact talks

Contract talks between Northwest Airlines Corp and its pilots union ended without an agreement on Friday, heightening the chance of a strike at the fourth largest US airline. The Air Line Pilots Association, the union representing Northwest's 6,200 pilots, said negotiations ended without a new contract or a schedule for further talks.

Doubled Finnair profit disappoints

Finnish National carrier Finnair onFriday reported profits in its financial year to end-March had doubled, but warned that intensifying competition could drag this year's earnings lower. Finnair's 1997-98 profit before extraordinary items rose to 627 million markka ($114.2 million) from 310 million a year earlier, but fell short of forecasts.