Despite a difficult economic year, HCC, the engineering construction and infrastructure development company, has reported net profit of Rs 51.4 crore for the quarter ended March, 31,2009 compared with Rs 26.41 crore in the corresponding previous quarter.

The company has registered a growth of 94.47 per cent in its fourth quarter's net profit.

However, company's net sales during the quarter dipped to Rs 1,049.86 crore from Rs 1,071.73 crore last year, down by 2.04 per cent.

Rajasthan-based Shree Cement Ltd has decided to invest Rs 1,200 crore in the current financial year to expand its production capacity, including setting up two greenfield plants and installing four captive power plants.

According to company officials, the investments would be made in two grinding units in Rajasthan and Uttaranchal, and two power plants of 50MW each at Bangur city.

Barcelona  - Russian Nikolay Davydenko checked in for another successful work day on the clay Friday while Rafael Nadal took advantage of a quarter-final walkover as the pair prepared for a Saturday semi-final clash at tennis' Barcelona Open.

Top-seeded world number one Nadal put in some practice time after learning the day before that seventh-seeded Argentine opponent David Nalbandian would not be fronting up for their match due to hip problems which intensified during the previous round.

Washington  - Europe must do better in cleaning up its banking sector, should the continent have any hopes of recovering from a devastating recession, the International Monetary Fund said Friday.

The World Bank meanwhile said some 35 million people in Eastern Europe and Central Asia could be thrown back into poverty by the crisis, and called on on Western Europe to keep trade links alive with its struggling eastern economies.

Olpe, Germany  - Three young children - abandoned in an Italian pizzeria after their mother and her companion ran out of cash - arrived home Friday in Germany, where they have been made wards of court, authorities in the district of Olpe said.

Two child protection officials from Olpe, east of Cologne, had travelled the day before to Aosta in Italy to pick them up.

Prague  - Czech police reported Friday detaining David Duke, former leader of US extremist group the Ku Klux Klan, on suspicion of denying the Holocaust in a book.

Duke arrived in Prague earlier this week at the invitation of local neo-Nazis to publicize the Czech translation of of 1998 memoir My Awakening.

Police have charged him with denying in the book that the systematic mass murder of Jews and other ethnic groups by Nazi Germany during World War II ever took place, a hate crime in the Czech Republic punishable by up to three years in prison, police spokesman Jan Mikulovsky told the German Press Agency dpa.