General Motors has confirmed plans to invest more than $890 million in five North American plants to produce a new generation of fuel-efficient truck and car engines.  The company estimates that the investment will create or retain more than 1,600 jobs at the plants. Two plants will support the engine productionÔÇöTonawanda in New York, which will receive an investment of $400 million, resulting in more than 710 jobs; and St.

Royal Dutch Shell has achieved a quarterly profits rise of nearly 50 per cent on the back of higher oil prices.

Emerson Electric Co. plans to seek meetings with shareholders of the UKÔÇÖs Chloride Group to press the case for a takeover after Chloride rejected EmersonÔÇÖs recent bid.  London-based Chloride dismissed a $1.12 billion offer from Ferguson, Missouri-based Emerson, saying it was too low. ChlorideÔÇÖs shareholders rejected a $1 billion bid from Emerson back in 2008 for the same reason.

Eurasian Natural Resources Corp., a Kazakh metal producer, has purchased 12 per cent of South AfricaÔÇÖs Northam Platinum for around R2.2 billion (Ôé¼223 million), it has been announced.

Charles River Laboratories, a Wilmington, Massachusetts-based drug research company, has signed an agreement to acquire a Chinese pharmaceutical contractor for about $1.6 billion.  Charles River is acquiring WuXi AppTec, a Chinese pharmaceutical outsourcing services provider.

The UKÔÇÖs last remaining ports company, Edinburgh-based Forth Ports, will this week ask the UK Takeover Panel to issue a bid deadline to its suitor, the Northstream consortium, according to a report in the Sunday Times.

Telecoms companies CenturyLink and Qwest have agreed to merge their businesses in a deal which values Qwest at $22.4 billion.  The merger will create the third largest fixed-line carrier in the US after AT&T and VerizonÔÇöboth of whom are focusing on their wireless services for growth. The combined company will serve local markets in 37 states with about five million broadband customers, 17 million wirelines and 850,000 wireless consumers.

MTN of South Africa is reportedly in talks with Orascom Telecom about buying the Cairo-based company's African mobile phone businesses.

Visa has continued its push into online payments and e-commerce by agreeing to buy electronic payments company CyberSource for $2 billion.  The deal comes just a week after rival MasterCard launched a new division dedicated to accelerating the development of different forms of payment. Mountain View, California-based CyberSource, which was founded in 1994, is essentially the online equivalent of terminals used to swipe credit and debit cards at physical stores.

Finland has granted permits to two of three applicants seeking to build new nuclear reactors in the Nordic country as it tries to wean itself off dependence on Russian power imports.