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.

Apple has announced a 90 percent jump in profits for the three months to March this year, more than surpassing the expectations of Wall Street analysts.  Total profit for the quarter surged to $3.07 billionÔÇönearly double its profit of $1.62 billion for the same quarter a year ago.

EADS, the parent of aircraft manufacturer Airbus, will make a solo bid for a contract to replace the US Air ForceÔÇÖs ageing fleet of refuelling tankers that could be worth up to $50 billion.

Calgary-based Suncor Energy has announced that production of natural gas from its Ebla project in Syria has begun.  Suncor, which is CanadaÔÇÖs largest energy company, took over management of the project when it acquired Petro-Canada last year. It is now selling gas into the Syrian market with the approval of the Syrian government after successfully commissioning and testing the project's wells, pipelines and other equipment.

MozambiqueÔÇÖs government is calling for the countryÔÇÖs businesses to participate in tenders that will shortly be launched for major public works financed by the United States Millennium Challenge Account (MCA).