Hollingsworth Daily Post

• British Airways and Iberia have drawn up a shortlist of up to 12 airlines which they hope to buy or merge with once their own tie-up has been completed.BA boss Willie Walsh did not name any of the airlines potentially involved.However they are reported to include carriers in emerging markets such as India or China.He made the comments in Mumbai while unveiling a code-sharing deal with India's Kingfisher Airlines.
• Germany's coalition government has decided to extend the life span of the country's nuclear power plants by an average of 12 years, officials say.Under the agreement, some plants will now remain in production until the 2030s, instead of being phased out by 2021 as the previous government wanted.There will also be new fees on utility companies to fund renewable energy.Chancellor Angela Merkel argued that renewable sources are not developed enough to abandon nuclear power.
• Google has proposed paying $8.5m (£5.5m) to settle a lawsuit brought over its Buzz social network.Launched in February, Buzz enrolled all Gmail users into a social network based around their contacts.The service was criticised because users initially had relatively little control over who could see their network of contacts.Several Gmail users took Google to court over Buzz saying the network violated personal privacy.
• China is checking the qualifications of all its commercial pilots, after it emerged that more than 200 of them lied about their experience.The revelation follows an investigation last year by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).Half the pilots worked for the parent company of an airline involved in a recent fatal plane crash.Shenzhen Airlines is the parent company of Henan Airlines, whose aircraft crashed last month killing 42 people.Fifty-four passengers and crew survived the crash, in which the plane missed the runway.
• There is no longer any justification for the UK's EU budget rebate - worth about 6bn euros (£5bn) last year, the EU budget commissioner says.Janusz Lewandowski told the German daily Handelsblatt that UK income per head had grown markedly since former prime minister Margaret Thatcher negotiated the rebate in 1984."The rebate for Britain has lost its original justification," he said.Next year the UK rebate will fall to about 3bn euros, he added.
• Severstal, Russia's largest steel producer, returned to profit in the second quarter, but missed analysts' expectations.It made a net profit of $192m (£125m) between April and June. It made a loss of $290m in the same period in 2009.The profit was hit by a loss from Severstal's discontinued Italian operations, which are up for sale.Severstal also said that restructuring its loss-making US assets was "the highest priority" for the company.
• Shares in Australia's biggest investment bank, Macquarie, fell sharply after the company cut its profits forecast.Macquarie said weak global markets were hitting earnings at its key units, including currencies and commodities.First-half profits would be 25% lower than the same period a year earlier, the bank said. Analysts had been expecting an 11% rise.At one point the shares were down by 8%, although they finished down 4.7%.

BBC Business News 6th September 2010