SYDNEY--22 Feb--AsiaNet/InfoQuest ISABET STAKES... MELBOURNE - Last Spring, Mark Read's IASbet made five luckypeople highroller punters for a day. Starting 25 February 2008,the country's biggest bookmaker is set to do it again with thelaunch of the $100,000 Big Bet Blast II offering even richerprizes and more chances to win.www.iasbet.com CAPITAL GOLD... LOS ANGELES - Capital Gold Group is going to China incelebration of the Chinese New Year. After sponsoring the "AsiaGold Tour" conferences which traveled throughout Asia in 2007,including Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Manila and Jakarta,the Capital Gold Group has announced a new China initiative for2008.www.SafeAsGold.comwww.TheCapitalGoldGroup.com ISPO CHINA... BEIJING - In the Olympic Year 2008, ispo china opens itsdoors next Sunday, February 24, 2008, for threebusiness-oriented and informative days at a new location inBeijing.www.ispochina.com THOMSON ANOUNCEMENT... PHILADELPHIA and LONDON - Thomson Scientific, part of TheThomson Corporation and leading provider of informationsolutions to the worldwide research and business communities,and Collexis Holdings Inc., a developer of high definitionsearch and knowledge discovery software, today announced plansto join together Collexis' Knowledge Dashboard with ThomsonScientific's Web of Science to create a custom data miningsolution for the research community.www.thomson.comwww.collexis.comwww.biomedexperts.com RISI REPORT... BOSTON - RISI, the leading information provider for theglobal forest products industry, today predicted that thePacific Rim woodchip trade -- already at record levels in 2007-- will expand even further to 18.8 million BDMT by 2010.www.risiinfo.comwww.risiinfo.com/pulpwood MICROSOFT STRATEGY... REDMOND, Washington - Microsoft Corp. today announced a setof broad-reaching changes to its technology and businesspractices to increase the openness of its products and drivegreater interoperability, opportunity and choice fordevelopers, partners, customers and competitors.www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/interoperabilitydefault.mspx FANNIE MAE... WASHINGTON, D.C.: Fannie Mae will redeem the principalamount of MTN securities issues amounting to a total ofUS$242.25 million on March 2, 2008 at a redemption price equalto 100 per cent of the principal amount redeemed plus accruedinterest. Fannie Mae will also redeem the principal amount ofFINS securities issues amounting to a total of US$95.80 millionon March 3, 2008 at a redemption price equal to 100 per cent ofthe principal amount redeemed plus accrued interest.www.fanniemae.com WORLD-CHECK... LONDON - World-Check, in partnership with data qualityspecialist Datanomic, recently embarked on a project to screenthe UK's Companies House register of companies, companydirectors and secretaries against World-Checks global databaseof high risk individuals and organisations. The underlying aimof the project was to identify the growing number of high riskindividuals registering and operating businesses in the UK.www.world-check.comwww.datanomic.com / DIGITAL DISPLAY... NEW YORK - MultiVu, PR Newswires multimedia and broadcastpublic relations company, is now offering its customers aunique opportunity to reach millions of consumers each day withvideo messages displayed on the 23-story high Reuters digitalbillboard located in New Yorks Times Square, the largest of itskind in the world, the company announced today.www.prnewswire.com/mnr/prnewswire/31780/ MULTIVU ANNOUNCEMENT... NEW YORK - MultiVu, PR Newswires multimedia and broadcast PRcompany, today announced the launch of a new mobile videodistribution service that enables MultiVu customers to extendthe reach of their video content to mobile phones, PDAs andother portable devices.www.prnewswire.com/mnr/prnewswire/31781/ NETDRAGON HONORED... HONG KONG - NetDragon Websoft Inc., one of the leading gamedevelopers and operators in the PRC, is pleased to announcethat the Group has been honored by the Forbes list "ChineseEnterprises with the Best Potential in 2008" and by Fortune's"Outstanding Employers of 2007". MANAGEMENT AWARD... SYDNEY - A watershed forest preservation initiative on theSolomon Islands and a reservoir watershed project in China havewon leading global reinsurer Swiss Re's 2008 InternationalReSource Award for Sustainable Watershed Management. The twoawarded projects will share prize money of more than USD150,000. LUVATA ANNOUNCEMENT... LONDON - With worldwide demand for solar energy growing,global metals manufacturing and technology company Luvata hasannounced aggressive growth plans for the production of itsSunwire branded photovoltaic wire. DUBAI ATTRACTION... DUBAI - Dubailand, a member of Tatweer, today announced ithas formed a strategic alliance with UK-based HITEntertainment, one of the world's leading independentchildren's entertainment producers and rights owners, todevelop a diverse portfolio of family entertainment projects inGlobal Village at DUBAILAND, the world's biggest tourism,leisure and entertainment destination.www.hitentertainment.com THOMSON REPORT... PHILADELPHIA and LONDON - Thomson Scientific, part of TheThomson Corporation and leading provider of informationsolutions to the worldwide research and business communities,has published its 2008 Patent Focus Report.www.scientific.thomson.comwww.thomson.comhttp://thomsonscientific.com/news/newsletter THOMSON SCIENTIFIC... PHILADELPHIA and LONDON - Thomson Scientific, part of TheThomson Corporation and leading provider of informationsolutions to the worldwide research and business communities,today announced the addition of Derwent World Patents Index-Rand essential scientific literature, including Web of Science-Rand Inspec-R, to Thomson Innovation-SM , its new intellectualproperty research and analysis solution.www.scientific.thomson.comwww.thomson.comhttp://thomsonscientific.com/news/newsletter AsiaNet is a consortium of leading news agencies distributing unedited, translated news releases for worldwideclients. Visit www.asianetnews.net for full-text versions.