In Short

A round-up of today's other stories in brief.

Firms to work on functional foods project

Four of the Republic's leading dairy industry players will collaborate on researching the functional foods sector.

Glanbia, Kerry Group, Dairygold and Carberry are pooling their efforts in order to develop capabilities in the growing functional foods area. Enterprise Ireland will also be involved in the project.

The four dairy producers have announced an initial investment of €12 million, which will used for research and commercialisation purposes.

Scientists' grants worth nearly €1m

Three young researchers have been awarded significant grants by the Science Foundation of Ireland (SFI) in recognition of exceptional achievements early in their careers.

Dr Emma Teeling of UCD, Dr James O'Donnell of TCD and Dr Oliver Blacque of UCD will each receive grants of almost €1 million each to fund their research projects over the next five years.

Accountants' body honours McCreevy

European Commissioner Charlie McCreevy has become the first recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland (ICAI).

The award was made in recognition of his contribution to public and business life in the State.

ICAI president Martin Wilson said: "There will be many chartered accountants who deserve this award but few will have had the impact on public and business life as Charlie McCreevy, first as minister for finance and now as European commissioner."

Ovoca Gold gets chief executive

Ovoca Gold has named Leonid Skoptsov as chief executive, in line with its goal of increasing its focus on Russia.

Mr Skoptsov, who is currently a non-executive director, will take over from Dr Barrie Oakes with immediate effect. Dr Oakes will remain on the board as a non-executive director.

'Business as usual' at Petroneft

Exploration minnow Petroneft yesterday acknowledged the recent increase in its share price, but said that business is progressing as usual.

The company said it is continuing appraisal activities on licence 61 in the Tomsk Oblast in western Siberia, including a 500 line kilometre 2D seismic survey and the mobilisation of the first well of its three-well 2006-07 winter drilling programme.

The group's shares, which are listed on IEX, more than doubled last month, ending November at 78 cent.

'Millionaire' show rights fetch £106m

Dutch TV producer 2waytraffic has agreed to buy the worldwide rights to the hit TV quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in a £106 million (€157 million) deal. 2waytraffic said it was buying Complete Communications, which includes Celador International, as well as Knight Whitehill Productions and The River Studio, which own the business, assets and rights to the show. - (Reuters)

Chinese fraudster jailed for life

The youngest entrant on Forbes magazine's list of China's richest 400 last year was jailed for life yesterday for fraud, state media reported. Zhou Yiming (32) faked financial reports to borrow 380 million yuan (€36 million) from three banks and later acquired a 28 per cent stake of a utility company, Xinhua news agency said. - (Reuters)