Mother Nature has shown time and again that she possesses the power to both amaze and terrify in equal measure. Nevertheless, what we have also seen on numerous occasions in the past is that mankind has the ability to take the most disastrous of events and turn them into something positive.

Balancing risks against opportunities is always a difficult call, and it is a problem that ASX listed Middle Island Resources takes very seriously. That is why the company, which was established to develop gold prospects in West Africa, has focused on countries that have an ‘acceptable’ level of sovereign risk, and in which there has been some precedent of successful mining.

Truly a natural wonder of our planet, the Swiss Alps have been attracting tourists from across the world since long before the construction of the first hotels and mountain huts in the mid eighteenth century. This continues to this day with the Alpine area as a whole attracting some 100 million visitors each year.

Classed as unconventional gas along with coalbed methane and so called 'tight' gas, shale gas is fast heading out of that category. In the USA it has already had a significant and irreversible effect on the economy, as evidenced by a recent report from consulting firm IHS which says the boom in domestic energy now directly or indirectly supports 1.2 million jobs and adds more than $1,200 to average disposable income – and that these figures will increase to 3.3 million jobs and $2,000 per household by 2020.

Almost twenty years ago, I had the opportunity to work with a major automotive parts supplier that was looking to significantly expand their business in the repair parts aftermarket. They saw this as a global opportunity, and one of the assignments I had was to describe the aftermarket environment as it evolved from the then-embryonic markets of countries like China and India to the differentiated markets of southern Europe and Brazil to the highly efficient and organized markets of North America and Japan.

In today’s world, where immediate access to information is literally at our fingertips, the need for speed can sometimes supersede due diligence, but in the absence of thorough background checks on potential employees, haste can result in waste – and sometimes worse.

The owner of beverage firm Orangina Schweppes has paid GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) £1.35 billion for the brands, which it hopes will allow the business to expand into new markets.

Ribena and Lucozade saw combined sales totalling about £500m last year, however GSK decided to offload the brands in April following a strategic review that advised a renewed focus on its core pharmaceuticals business.

The move by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa comes as emerging economies across the world have been hit by speculation that US may scale back its key economic stimulus programme soon, which has in turn prompted investors to pull out money, hurting the currencies of emerging countries.