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

Enterprise Ireland funds drugs project

Enterprise Ireland is providing €362,600 in grants to fund a new collaboration between drug discovery company EiRx Therapeutics and University College Cork (UCC). The collaboration will establish a medicinal chemistry team in Cork under the supervision of Prof Anita Maguire, chair of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at UCC, to optimise compounds emerging from the company's drug discovery platform and advance them towards clinical trials.

Employers told to deal with bullying

All employers have an obligation to document and put in place procedures against bullying in their workplaces, the Health and Safety Authority said yesterday. The authority was highlighting its new code of practice on bullying, which will now be admissible as evidence in court should employees take civil action for personal injuries against employers. It is also admissible in cases regarding bullying-related dismissals before the Employment Appeals Tribunal.

North's business activity on the up

The business sector in the North experienced its strongest rise in activity and new orders for six months, according to the Ulster Bank Purchasing Managers' Index for Northern Ireland.

Levels of business activity increased during July, registering 57.8, with the rate of growth slightly above the UK average. Data signalled that the strongest rises in activity were at construction firms.

Etihad adds more Dublin flights

Etihad Airways, the national carrier of the United Arab Emirates, is to add two extra weekly services between Dublin and Abu Dhabi from December 13th. It will bring its number of weekly flights on the route to six.

Pressure mounts on Borse Dubai

Sweden's financial regulator turned up the pressure on Borse Dubai yesterday after it emerged the Gulf-based exchange operator would miss today's deadline to declare whether it would make a bid for OMX. The Financial Supervisory Authority has set a new and final deadline of Thursday and said Borse Dubai would be "called in for questioning" if it gets no answers. Borse Dubai bought a quarter of the Nordic stock market company last week for SKr230 (€24.70) a share, topping the price of an agreed SKr208-a-share deal with Nasdaq worth €2.7 billion. - (Financial Times service)

Microsoft in online advertising move

Microsoft Corp said yesterday it formed a new business group to work with advertisers and publishers and gain a foothold in an online advertising market expected to grow to $80 billion (€59 billion) by 2010. - (Reuters)