Helped by the weaker yen and the money it has raised from asset sales, the Japanese consumer electronics firm now expects to report net income of 40 billion yen compared to its previous forecast of 20 billion yen.

A weaker currency increases the value of Sony's overseas revenues when repatriated back into yen. Sony said it had assumed an average foreign exchange rate of 88 yen to one US dollar for the first three months of this year. But the actual rate had turned out to be 92 yen to one US dollar.

It marks the first time that Australia’s central bank will invest in sovereign bonds of an Asian country other than Japan. It follows events of earlier this month when the Australian dollar became the third currency to trade directly with the Chinese yuan.

ARM Holdings, the Cambridge-based designer and licenser of low-energy chip technology widely adopted by smartphone and tablet manufacturers has announced adjusted pre-tax profits of £89.4 million in the first three months of the year – that’s 44 percent up on the same period last year. First quarter revenue went up 28 percent to £170.3 million. Following the announcement ARM shares increased by 6.4 percent.

From the first aboriginal inhabitants to use various minerals to produce tools to the now 363,000 plus people who earn a living from the more than 800 mines that exist across the country, Canada’s history has always been intrinsically linked to mining.

This move into the oil and gas hydraulic fracturing market is something that’s new and exciting for our company,” enthuses Bruce Coulthard, President of PZS Stabilization LLC. The move in question has come as a result of forming a manufacturing company, SNCA Products LLC, and including exclusive rights to distribute a revolutionary new line of products globally. One of those products, SGA-1, is formulated specifically for the hydraulic fracturing process of oil and gas extraction -also called “fracing”.

The first line on Madrid’s underground railway network, the Metro de Madrid, was inaugurated on the 17th October 1919 by King Alfonso XIII. It had eight stations along 3.3 kilometres of track. Ever since that date the Metro has experienced progressive growth, which has made access possible to the majority of the capital's districts and to some of the most important municipalities in the metropolitan area. Today it is the sixth longest metro system in the world, with 300 stations and 292 kilometres of track, 90 percent of it underground.

In 2012, MAXAM celebrated its 140th birthday. Founded by Alfred Nobel in 1872, the group today stands recognised as being one of the leading service and industrial organisations operating on a global scale, with a yearly turnover of approximately one billion euros.

Specialising in the development, manufacture and commercialisation of civil explosives and initiation systems for mining, MAXAM boasts a presence in all of the world’s major and developing mining areas.

While Macrotek has been marketing pollution control systems to every conceivable industry for more than 80 years – after all it’s hard to name a field of human activity that does not generate emissions – in recent years it has tended to focus on the mining industry. Indeed it has developed a relationship with that industry that could be described as symbiotic. Located in Toronto the company finds itself at the centre of a global technological and financial hub that has made it the city of choice for mining majors and juniors alike.