It already owns Thames Television, the independent production company, and Grundy Worldwide, the Australian producer of hits such as Neighbours, bought earlier this year.Along with its partner, MAI, the media and financial services company, it is also a bidder for the licence to operate the new Channel 5, scheduled to be awarded in September.Some analysts expressed concern about Pearson's past acquisition policy, saying the company had overpaid for key holdings. "They haven't got a huge influence with only a 14 per cent stake," Robert Jolliffe, media analyst at Hoare Govett, said.Pearson is looking to expand in the production and distribution areas. If the sale goes ahead, BSkyB will have a large enough public shareholding to be eligible for inclusion in the FT-SE 100 index, with improved trading prospects.Analysts had been expecting the announcement. MATHEW HORSMAN Pearson, the media and information conglomerate, looked poised yesterday to accelerate its expansion into television production, hinting that it might allocate further funds to finance the high-stakes strategy of its TV chief, Greg Dyke. Announcing a review of its 14 per cent stake in BSkyB, the satellite broadcaster, Pearson said it might sell a 9.7 per cent holding worth pounds 500m through a secondary share offering.The news immediately sparked speculation that Pearson would expand further into television and multimedia, under a strategy developed jointly by Pearson's chief executive, Frank Barlow, and Mr Dyke, formerly head of London Weekend Television.Shares in both Pearson and BSkyB climbed on the news.

Moshood Abiola, the businessman believed to have won the vote, is in jail accused of treason.Gen Abacha promises to announce a programme for a return to civilian rule in his Independence Day broadcast on 1 October.. And I think that is what the government is going to buy," said the Defence Ministry spokesman, Brigadier-General Fred Chijuka.Nigeria has been in turmoil since the army annulled an election in 1993 supposed to restore democracy, an action that led Western nations to impose token sanctions. Mr Attah cautioned that the outcome of the review could not be easily predicted.It was not clear when the Provisional Ruling Council, also chaired by Gen Abacha, would meet but one newspaper said it could be today. "Judging by the mood of the nation and the past record of the administration there is reason to believe that justice will be tempered by mercy."Among those whose fate is in the generals' hands are a former head of state, retired General Olusegun Obasanjo, and his deputy, Major-General Shehu Musa Yar'Adua.The authorities have not made public the sentences but newspapers say Gen Obasanjo was given a life jail term and Gen Yar'Adua and 13 others were sentenced to death.The sentencing after the secret trial that began on 5 June has drawn myriad clemency appeals from local and international human rights groups and world leaders. If this is the world's opinion, it cannot be ignored," said Gen Abacha's chief press secretary, David Attah. The generals will take into account the flood of local and foreign appeals for mercy, the head of state's spokesman said.The National Defence Council, made up of senior military officials, were gathered at the presidential villa in the capital Abuja under the chairmanship of military ruler General Sani Abacha.Their decision will go to the governing Provisional Ruling Council, which has the final word on the soldiers and civilians convicted in a secret trial of trying to topple the government in March."This administration in its entirety is a very responsible one. TUNDE OBADINA of Reuters Lagos - Nigeria's ruling generals began a meeting yesterday to review sentences passed against 40 people found guilty of plotting a coup against the military government.

It argues that they are needed to improve computer simulation of nuclear tests so that France can catch up with Russia, the United States and Britain before signing up to the test-ban treaty.. If a deal can be struck later this week the 100ft vessel will sail to Tahiti.The French foreign ministry said President Jacques Chirac's decision to go ahead with the tests, announced last month, was irrevocable, despite the international condemnation.France says the tests will do no significant environmental damage nor harm human health. Most of them will set off on Sunday 6 August - the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.What they will do once they arrive off Mururoa in September has still to be decided. One option is to enter the exclusion zone en masse in an attempt to swamp the French navy.Chartering the Lady of the Pacific, a modern catamaran, depends on getting her New Zealand owner to lower his price, William Peden, a Greenpeace campaigner, said. Until now, only MPs from New Zealand, Australia and the Cook Islands have indicated that they will join.The German SPD deputy leader, Heidimarie Wieczorek-Ceul, called the New Zealand Labor leader, Helen Clark, late last week to say the protest flotilla idea had interested German parliamentarians."The word is that at least 50 yachts are signed up for the flotilla in Australia and New Zealand," a London-based Greenpeace spokeswoman, Desley Mather, said. The damage inflicted just over two weeks ago, when she was rammed by the French Navy and seized by commandos, will be repaired. The ship had entered the 12-mile exclusion zone imposed around Mururoa, the remote islet where France has tested its nuclear weapons for three decades.Meanwhile, Greenpeace's 38ft yacht Vega is expected to arrive in Tahiti today, having picked up the three veteran activists who were in the vicinity of Mururoa for two weeks.Greenpeace says the escapade by the organisation'sfounder, the Canadian David McTaggart, New Zealander Henk Haazen and Australian Chris Robinson was a success, because it showed protesters could remain near Mururoa undetected by the French forces.The anti-nuclear flotilla sailing to Mururoa may be joined by German Social Democratic Party MPs.