Staff Reporters

PROGRESSIVE expansion of its vineyard and winery operations will result in the Houghton Wine Company building a new facility in the South West next year.

WA-based venture capitalist Burdekin Resources Ltd has invested a 40 per cent stake in a new joint venture between Oracle Corporation Australia and US-based Liberate Technologies.

TRADING conditions in WA are improving with the economy being steady but set to accelerate.

JUNIOR hydrocarbon explorer Nido Petroleum Limited has made considerable progress with its project in China and expects to produce oil in the first quarter of this year.

NEARLY 40 per cent of workers would accept a job following avirtual interview, a virtual tour of the workplace and viewing footage about the employer, according to a recent survey by Monster.com.au.

TEAMS vying for the America's Cup have used Fremantle-based Formation Design Systems' software technology to design their yachts.

THE movement against cybersquatting, the use of trade marked names for websites which are not held by the owner, is gaining momentum.

JUNIOR oil and gas explorer First Australian Resources NL has signalled its intent to the bourse that it intends going down the track of the electronic superhighway.

THE days of retail giants such as Harvey Norman, Woolworths and Coles entering the non-bank financial industry are not far away.

AUSTRALIA'S first purely online directory developer has been created with shareholders in Boss Resources voting to change the company's name to Aussie Online Limited.

As businesses demand more complex website functionality, web developers may have to learn a lot more about XML – it's been around for nearly four years but now its time may have arrived.

aRECORD production from WA's Stag field has provided a fillip for Santos Ltd's balance sheet for 1999.

BENTLEY-based Dynamic Digital Depth has devised a way to deliver 3D content over the Internet.

WA BRICK and tile manufacturer Bristile Ltd – currently embroiled in a takeover of Wesfi – has been forecast to double its earnings in the current fiscal year by expanding interstate.

ALTHOUGH gold experienced a blip in October 1999, it was another disappointing year for the precious metal which has been losing out to investments in hydrocarbons and some base metals.

THE sale of diamonds last year by the De Beers controlled Central Selling Organisation achieved an all-time record, according to South African stockbroker BOE Securities.

A good ‘family restaurant' delivers more than kiddie-proof food, high chairs and chips with everything. It imposes a frame of mind where it doesn't matter so much what wine goes with what dish or whether the sea salt is from Normande or even what you wear

A MOVE by mining giant North Limited to slash about $100 million from its balance sheets has resulted in redundancies and operational restructuring by Pilbara iron ore miner Robe River Iron Associates.

I HAVE just visited Perth on one of those things Barry Humphries' Sir Les Patterson used to refer to as a ‘fact finding mission'.

IT WAS no surprise to read in January that an international survey has rated Perth's quality of living among the highest in the world.

WOODSIDE Petroleum Limited has paid US$25.6 million for entry into hydrocarbon prospective, deep water exploration acreage in the Gulf of Mexico.

GOLD miner Croesus Mining NL has reported high-grade gold intersections in recent drilling at its Fort William prospect at Binduli.

THE diversified resource sector hitting the strongest industry grouping performance during December augurs well for the industry which continues to be dogged by gold jitters and hawkish sentiment from US markets.

IN AN increasingly ‘wired' world one might expect energy consumption, and with it greenhouse gas emissions, to grow but studies suggest electronic commerce is environmentally friendly.

WITH the dawn of the new millennium, the world's most powerful banker, Allan Greenspan has recognised that the Internet-led new economy has rewritten the economic rule book.

PERTH-based Titan Resources NL has completed construction of a $2.23 million pilot plant for bacterial leaching of its Mt Sholl nickel-copper ore deposit in the Pilbara region of WA.

PLANS by Robe River Iron Associates to boost production to fifty million tonnes per annum have reached a crucial stage.

It is agreed – the Internet brings with it the ability to personalise marketing faster and more easily than ever before, but privacy is becoming an issue.

TWO multi-million dollar abalone farms are being set up for the first time in WA in the small South West seaside resort of Bremer Bay – recently hard hit by the closure of the pilchard fishing industry by Bremer Fish Processors.

Premier Richard Court has responded to a request from the WA division of the Property Council for an explanation of the intention to apply stamp duty on property transactions that attract a GST, establishing the duty as a second tax dip.

PERTH-based Mineralogy Pty Ltd has entered into an agreement with Austeel Pty Ltd to provide access to 740 million tonnes of magnetite ore on attractive commercial terms.

IT IS now a matter of history that the changeover to the year 2000 happened without any great problems.