"It would be my very "xed opinion that there is no intention by De Beers to try and buy African Diamonds, " he said. De Beers paid 3m for a 6% stake in the company last week from former African Diamonds director Mark Scowcroft.

The Irish company's shares jumped 7.5% to 152.5p on London's AIM on the news. Teeling said De Beers had acquired the shares under the terms of a deal agreed when it entered a joint exploration venture with African Diamonds in Botswana two years ago. Under the terms of that deal De Beers has "rst right of refusal on all shares owned by African Diamonds' directors, at present equating to around 19% of the issued share capital, in the event that they wish to sell.

HIBERNIA COLLEGE, whose online training courses are bitterly opposed by the teacher training schools, turned the "nancial corner last year with pro"ts of 56,000.

Accounts just "led show net liabilities of almost 1.8m at the end of January, slightly down from the same date in 2005. Its main asset is the 1.2m invested in developing online course content. The company had almost 380,000 in the bank.

The directors, led by founder Sean Rowland who owns 68% of the company, reported that Hibernia College has "a sound basis for an operationally and "nancially successful future", adding that its big investment in course content is generating "signi"cant" revenues and cash receipts.

Rowland saw off strong opposition from the educational establishment to win approval from Noel Dempsey during his time as Minister for Education for online teacher training.

Since then he has added other courses including masters programmes in pharmaceutical medicine, hospitality management and public administration.

THE FINANCIAL REGULATOR published a credit card survey warning cardholders to be on their guard against terms and conditions offered by card issuers that can charge borrowers interest on the entire amount owed even if payment is made that falls just short of that. Brendan Burgess, chairman of the consumer panel that advises the Financial Regulator, says the practice should be outlawed. But other than drawing it to the attention of the public, the regulator has not taken further action.