Sydney--16 Aug--AsiaNet/InfoQuest QBE PROFITS... SYDNEY: QBE Insurance Group announced Wednesday thatoperating profit after tax for the half year ended 30 June 2006increased by 20 per cent to $A591 million ($US451.44million). QUEEN MOURNED... WELLINGTON: The death of the Maori Queen of Aotearoa/NewZealand on Tuesday 15 August is to be marked by a funeral onMonday, 21 August (New Zealand time) at Turangawaewae Marae,south of Auckland. http://www.nzpaimages.co.nz NORTHERN APPOINTS... TOKYO: Northern Trust Global Investments, the assetmanagement arm of Chicago-based Northern Trust Corporation, hasadded to its team in Tokyo with the appointments of Mr. ShojiYamada as Executive Adviser and Mr. Osamu Hattori as Head ofInvestment Management. http://www.northerntrust.com 4WDs PRODUCED... REDDITCH: GKN Driveline has begun production in the UnitedStates of a new electronic differential lock for two andfour-wheel-drive vehicles that offers safety and drivabilitybenefits for consumers. http://www.gkndriveline.com NOTES PRICED... WASHINGTON: Fannie Mae, the largest non-bank financialservices company in the world has priced its US$3 billionrelease of New Issue 10-Year Benchmark Notes at US$99.395 tomature on September 15, 2016. http://www.fanniemae.com PRICES INCREASED... WILMINGTON: DuPont Titanium Technologies has announced aprice increase in Latin America for all DuPont Ti-Pure titaniumdioxide grades. http://www.titanium.dupont.com NVIDIA POWERS... SANTA CLARA: NVIDIA Corporation, the worldwide leader inprogrammable graphics processor technologies, announcedWednesday that the Company's family of NVIDIA nForceProfessional core-logic solutions has been selected to powernew x64 platforms from Sun Microsystems, including servers suchas the Sun Fire X2100 M2, Sun Fire X2200 M2, Sun Fire X4600,and the Sun Blade 8000, as well as the Sun Ultra 20 M2Workstation. http://www.nvidia.com ASAIKI JOINS... GAITHERSBURG: Storewiz, Inc., a provider of innovativeonline storage compression solutions, has announced that AsaikiTechnology Pte Ltd, an independent distributor specializing ina wide range of electronics components & semiconductorequipment, has joined its growing community of channel partnersto provide Storewiz solutions in Singapore. http://www.asaiki.net http://www.storewiz.com (Asia net is a consortium of leading news agenciesdistributing unedited, translated news releases for worldwideclients. Visit www.asianetnews.net for full-text versions.)