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In a country synonymous with larger-than-life mining tycoons and Outback heroes, the geeks are quietly inheriting the earth. As coal magnate Nathan Tinkler, the poster boy for Australia's fading 10-year minerals boom, publicly battles against bankruptcy, software entrepreneurs Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar are riding high. The former college buddies behind fast-growing software firm Atlassian unceremoniously bumped Tinkler off the top of Australia's "young rich list", leading a charge in the country's blooming technology industries.   The tech start-up and biotech sectors are at the forefront of a push to transform Australia from an exporter of iron ore to an exporter of ideas. "It's a pretty primitive economy," said internet entrepreneur Matt Barrie. "We basically dig stuff up out of the ground, put it on a boat and ship it." As part of ambitious plans to change that, the government has announced millions of dollars in new

Britain's FTSE 100 index is seen opening flat to 4 points higher, or up 0.07 percent, on Monday, according to financial bookmakers. For more on the factors affecting European stocks, please click on _0"> * The UK blue chip index fell 43.34 points, or 0.7 percent, to 6,116.17 points on Friday, the lowest seen since January. The index recorded a fifth straight weekly loss, hit by the prospect of a curbing of U.S. monetary stimulus.   * ENRC - The billionaire founders of ENRC are close to finalising a buyout bid for the London-listed Kazakh miner, valuing the troubled group at just over 3 billion pounds ($4.7 billion), below the value of a tentative proposal made in May. * Trading in shares of Kazakhmys was suspended on Monday afternoon pending a statement on inside information, according to a filing on the Hong Kong exchange. The company is also listed in London. * Rio Tinto Ltd has scrapped the proposed sale of its $1.3 billion diamonds business, a setback for its

European stock index futures pointed to a lower open on Monday, adding to last week's sharp losses, as investors fretted about the prospect of reduced U.S. monetary stimulus and worries over China's banking sector. _0"> At 0602 GMT, futures for Euro STOXX 50, for UK's FTSE 100, for Germany's DAX and for France's CAC were down 0.2-0.9 percent.

Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc was ramping up production at its Indonesian unit on Monday, a company spokeswoman said, six weeks after a deadly tunnel collapse at the world's No.2 copper mine halted operations.   Trade union workers at the Grasberg mine in remote West Papua were also returning to production work, while postponed pay talks with the Arizona-based firm have been resumed, a union official added. Freeport Indonesia employs about 24,000 workers, of which three-quarters belong to the union. Freeport stopped production at Grasberg on May 15, a day after a training area in a tunnel caved in, killing 28 people. Planned pay talks were also put on hold last month. On Saturday, the company said it had slowly resumed open-pit mining after receiving approval from the Indonesian government, although underground production remained closed. "We herewith confirm that we have started to ramp up production since Saturday," Freeport Indonesia spokeswoman Daisy Prim

Sandoz, the generics unit of Novartis, has launched a late-stage trial with its biosimilar version of Amgen's Enbrel, consolidating its leading position in developing cheaper copies of complex biotech drugs. _0"> With the start of the major study of its version of Enbrel, or etanercept, Sandoz now has seven Phase III clinical trials across five biosimilar molecules - more than any other company in the industry.   Sandoz said on Monday the new trial aimed to confirm the biosimilarity of its product versus Enbrel in patients with moderate to severe chronic plaque-type psoriasis. Results will be used to support U.S. and European regulatory filings. Unlike traditional chemical drugs, biotech medicines consist of proteins derived from living organisms that cannot be replicated exactly. Generic copies, therefore, are more difficult to develop and market. IMS Health, a provider of data for the healthcare industry, expects global spending on biosimilars to increase to between

Chinese shares dragged Asian bourses to a fresh 9-1/2-month low on Monday as investors worried about Beijing's economic and financial stability and markets scrambled to price in the Federal Reserve's plan to slow its stimulus drive later in 2013. European stocks were seen consolidating after last week's losses, with financial spreadbetters predicting London's FTSE 100, Paris's CAC-40 and Frankfurt's DAX would open little changed. But a 0.6 percent drop in U.S. stock futures pointed to a weak Wall Street open. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1.8 percent to its lowest since early September, after posting its worst week since May 2012 with a drop of 4.5 percent last week. Most of the region's stock indexes are now well into oversold territory. China bank shares led the downward spiral after official news reports at the weekend suggested Beijing would continue to address the risks of shadow banking, which was behind t

June 24