Mining has been a part of life in the Norilsk area since the 1920s, during which time the seeds were sown for what would become a lucrative industry for the region and Russia as a whole over the course of the subsequent century. It was in 1935 that the government of the USSR created the Norilsk Combine and 1943 that Norilsk managed to produce an annual total of 4000 tonnes of refined nickel, before hitting its target figure of 10,000 tonnes just two years later in 1945.

While for much of its 161 year history Liberia has been a stable and productive democracy, recent decades have seen the country plagued by civil war and adversely affected by the drying up of foreign investment. Nevertheless, the current government of Liberia, led by President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, is determined to lead the country into a new age of economic growth.

Funai will pay $200 million, as well as a regular brand licensing fee, to take control of Philips’ product lines, which include its hi-fis and DVD players.  

The deal follows the announcement last year that Philips was to transfer its loss-making television unit to a new joint venture arrangement with Hong Kong’s TPV and comes at a time where the company wants to focus on its healthcare, light bulbs and home appliances businesses as part of its "Accelerate!" restructuring plan.

Founded in 1987, the Time Mining Group employs almost 400 staff and operates principally under the names of Time Mining and Processing Pty Ltd., Performance Laboratories Pty Ltd., Time Mining (Ghana) Limited and Dump and Dune Drillers Pty Ltd.

In addition to providing process plant design, project management and commissioning and optimisation services for minerals processing plants, the group also delivers analytical services, and commercial and on-site laboratories, through their Performance Laboratories entity.

Agreed on the side-lines of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos, the 50 year production sharing deal between Kiev and Shell is thought to be the biggest contract in Europe to extract natural gas trapped in shale rock.

As technology continues to advance with the growth of cloud computing and SaaS, data security needs to be at the forefront of every CIO, CEO and IT manager’s mind.

Great leaders concentrate their energies on the things they are good at. They must also inspire others in their organisation to achieve greatness.

Most businesses today, particularly large multinationals (the most noticeable and easiest to scrutinize), are driven by two distinct styles of management; inspiration-led and aspiration-led styles. Whilst they are quite different in their modus operandi, they do have some distinct cross-overs. Neither, however, provides a holistic winning formula in the current economic climate.