Jul 25--PRNewswire/AsiaNetWHALING BLOW-UP... LONDON: A proposal to establish a South Pacific whale sanctuary has been rejected by the International Whaling Commission today, with the weight of votes just short of the essential 3/4 majority despite support from the Australian and New Zealand governments. "Today's vote is the latest evidence that a hard-core minority of whaling countries can now block action in the forum," the International Fund for Animal Welfare commented.NET WIDE AND STRONG IN AUSTRALIA... SYDNEY: The Internet generates A$28 billion per year for the Australian economy, a figure that would grow to A$49 billion by 2004, according to a study commissioned by Cisco Systems and delivered by the Hon. Senator Richard Alston, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts today. The report, geared to assess how breadth of Australia's Internet economy, identified that the Net was the mainstream business of five per cent of Australia's companies with a clear majority participating at some level to gain competitive advantage. PRESTIGIOUS IT/AIRLINE ALLIANCE... SINGAPORE: Bigname IT companies, IBM and SITA, will team to offer Asia-Pacific airlines and airports a range of technology solutions to "better use existing resources, improve operating efficiencies, reduce costs and maximise return on IT investment", according to a company statement.INFO DOMAIN NAME DE RIGEUR... MELBOURNE: CEO of domain name supplier, Melbourne IT, Mr Adrian Kloeden said today "the commencement of the 'Sunrise Period' today for the .info domain space represents the time when all trademark holders should act (if they haven't already) to register to protect their marks in this domain space," following the company's announcement that it would begin submitting the new .info domain name to Afilias, the ICANN accredited registry, on behalf of international trademark and service mark holders.INTERNATIONAL DATA CAPACITY QUADRUPLED... TAIPEI: Asia Global Crossing today toasted the inauguration of its Taiwan subsea cable system, part of its East Asia Crossing network connecting 200 major business centres across 27 countries and quadrupling the country's international data-carrying capacity.DRUG DATA DELIVERY BREAKTHROUGH... MONTREAL: MDS Pharma Services today launched its new electronic data delivery platform that will allow its pharmacology clients, discovery and preclinical units to "download reports and raw data directly to their computers (and)..to analyse and manipulate data directly on their in-house systems", according to a news release.INTERNATIONAL CAR DESIGN COMPETITION... TORONTO: Five prestigious international design schools have taken up the challenge to design the " ideal shared mobility vehicle" for the World Automotive Design Competition and submitted entries from ten of their automotive design students, competition organiser, the Canadian International AutoShow announced today.BROADBAND EXPLOSION IMPELS PLATFORM... MOBILE: Accelerated Technology Inc, the operating system company, has launched a new integrated software platform, Residential Gateway Suite, for home and small offices. The company said the explosive growth of broadband Internet access had motivated development of the system.INSURANCE SHARE TENDER OFFER ANNOUNCED... SPRINGFIELD: The MassMutual Financial Group today announced its share tender offer for Japanese life insurer, Aetna Heiwa Life Insurance Co, valued at $4.5 billion.FINANCIAL RESULTS: LAKE FOREST: Agricultural equipment manufacturer, CNH Global N.V, today announced net revenues of $US 2.7 billion for second quarter 2001, reporting that "adjusted for divestitures and currency impact, revenues were essentially unchanged." (AsiaNet is a consortium of leading news agencies distributing unedited, translated press releases for worldwide clients. Contact: www.asianet.com.au for full-text versions).