Reuters editorial and business information services, supplied through TRF, are major resources within a new hi-tech Beirut business school.

The Suliman S. Olayan School of Business (OSB) at the American University of Beirut (AUB) inaugurated its new four-storey building overlooking the Mediterranean Sea at a grand ceremony in October. TRF's Chief Executive Officer, Monique Villa, and Director of Journalism Training, Jo Weir, joined guests from the Lebanon, the Middle East and the United States to celebrate the opening and to hear how the new facility is expected to significantly enhance training in business in the region. In a surprise appearance, Lebanon's outgoing Prime Minister Fouad Siniora gave an inspirational speech about the value of AUB and the OSB to the nation and beyond.

The new building is designed to encourage academic collaboration and research and includes an e-trading room provided by TRF, connected to real-time trading information from Reuters so that OSB's students and their instructors will be able to track details as if they were real brokers. TRF will also be able to use the facility to hold at least two training courses for business journalists each year.

"Often journalists are accused of providing wrong or misleading business news," says Jo Weir, "but we know that journalists can experience difficulty in getting correct and useful information from businesses and banks and so work needs to be done to improve the flow and quality of information given to the media. We believe we could work usefully with OSB in exploring ways of addressing that through training."

AUB has a long history in business education, being the first in the region to offer courses, in 1900. The OSB now has more than 1000 students a year, drawn from around the Middle East and the rest of the world.

For more information visit the university's website: www.aub.edu.lb