Our airline is still too expensive to run," Mr Eddington said in a recent letter to staff.The size and scale of the cuts are now being firmed up and will be signed off by the end of the month. British Airways is close to finalising a new cost-cutting plan that may result in further job losses at the troubled company. The airline, which has seen its high-earning transatlantic flights disrupted by security alerts this week, is working on how to remove further costs in the business.Some 13,000 jobs at the company have been lost in the past two years, which has helped reduce costs by £1.5bn, but BA is still struggling to stave off the impact of falling sales.Rod Eddington, its chief executive, has made it clear that cost-cutting measures will be key to the company's survival. However, the IPO market has ended the year on a strong note and is very much open for business.". during 2003 but we are not yet seeing the flood of IPOs across the European markets predicted by some commentators.

Three of the four largest listings were in London, including Vedanta, the mining group, at €730m, Alea, the reinsurer, at €238m and Center Parcs on the Alternative Investment Market at €3525m.The AIM, a market for fledgling and smaller companies, has seen a high volume of activity this year Of 44 IPOs in London, 39 were on AIM. Tom Troubridge, of PwC, said: "There has been a steady improvement ... Research from PwC shows a 76 per cent improvement in the number of floats in Europe in the fourth quarter.The months of October to December last year also saw an increase in the value of IPOs compared with the same period in 2003, up 129 per cent to €2.5bn (£1.8bn). "With strength returning to the capital markets and increasingly involved institutional shareholders these transactions will remain challenging," Mr Milner said.Improved stock market conditions are helping to boost IPO activity. Taking public companies private is expected to become more difficult as stock markets improve. Confidence at the lower end of the market [deals valued under £150m] returned in the Spring Activity at the larger end has been more patchy. It has taken longer for confidence to return but we are now again seeing activity across the board." The group predicts that 2004 will be another strong year for buyouts, particularly in the middle market.Five of the deals in the past quarter took public companies into the hands of private equity firms, including Debenhams at £1.7bn.

Figures from KMPG show that transactions worth £6.8bn were completed between October and December last year. This is a 70 per cent improvement on the value of deals in the fourth quarter of 2002.Over the year, 121 private equity deals were completed with a total value of £15.5bn, up 5 per cent on 2002 This turns around a two-year decline in the value of deals. Charles Milner, the head of corporate finance at KMPG's Private Equity Group, said: "The strong last quarter of 2003 marks a return of confidence in the buyout market. Stock market flotations and company buyouts are both on a rising trend after a prolonged period of subdued activity, according to research published today by PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG.

Then she took off on her rounds, checking on the small army of lodgers bedding down for the night Tonight, she will do the same again.. Sudan now claims to have cut its ties with the LRA.But there appears to be no end in sight, said Jessica Ochirowijok, an aid worker at the "night commuter" shelter in Gulu. "We are just crossing the river, but we don't know if the bridge is broken or not," she said. Robert said that when he was wounded in 2002, he was flown to Khartoum where President Omar Al Bashir visited him in hospital.