SYDNEY, Aug. 13 --AsiaNet/InfoQuest INDEPENDENT DIRECTOR... SINGAPORE: Pacific Internet Limited or PacNet, Asia's largest telco-independent Internet Communications Service Provider by geographical reach, Friday announced the appointment of Mr. Chua Kee Lock as an independent director to its Board. http://www.pacnet.com REVENUE JUMPS... HONG KONG & LOS ANGELES, Calif.: LJ International, Inc., one of the fastest-growing fine jewelry companies in the world, Friday reported financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2004, including a 40 per cent rise in revenue and doubling of earnings per share. http://www.ljintl.com PROFIT GROWS... HONG KONG: Techtronic Industries Co. Ltd. Friday reported net profit of HK$299 million for the six months ended 30th June 2004, representing 41.8% growth over the same period last year. http://www.ttigroup.com OLYMPIC BETS... SYDNEY: Centrebet is offering odds on every event at the Athens Olympics and is taking bets at 33-1 that Commonwealth Games champ Beatrice Faumuina wins gold in the women's discus after carrying New Zealand's flag at the Games opening ceremony. http://www.centrebet.com FANNIE MAE... WASHINGTON, D.C.: Fannie Mae will redeem the principal amount of one securities issue amounting to US$25 million on Aug 22, 2004 at a redemption price equal to 100 percent of the principal amount redeemed plus accrued interest. http://www.fanniemae.com GRAPHICS PROCESSORS... QUAKECON 2004, GRAPEVINE, Texas: NVIDIA Corporation, the worldwide leader in visual processing solutions, Thursday introduced the GeForce 6600 GT and GeForce 6600, the latest additions to its GeForce 6 Series of graphics processing units (GPUs). http://www.nvidia.com EQUATOR PRINCIPLES... SAO PAULO: Banco Itau and Banco Itau BBA have just subscribed to the Equator Principles in line with their values of social responsibility and corporate governance. http://www.itau.com http://www.ifc.org NEW PRESIDENT... VANCOUVER: Vancouver-based gold miner Placer Dome Thursday announced the appointment of Peter Tomsett as the company's new President and CEO with effect from Sept 15, 2004. http://www.placerdome.com BREAST CANCER... BASEL: Femara (letrozole) has been approved in Switzerland via fast track procedure for the extended adjuvant treatment of postmenopausal women with hormone receptor positive or unknown early breast cancer who have received post-surgery tamoxifen therapy for five years, Novartis announced Thursday. http://www.novartis.com http://www.femara.com http://www.novartisoncology.com http://www.novartisoncologyvpo.com PASSENGER GROWTH... FRANKFURT/MAIN: Frankfurt Airport, the largest German airport, once again registered almost 4.8 million passengers in July 2004, up 5.6 per cent year-on-year. http://www.fraport.de (AsiaNet is a consortium of leading news agencies distributing unedited, translated news releases for worldwide clients. Visit www.asianetnews.net for full-text versions.)--InfoQuest (SP)--