Drinks giant Diageo has agreed to acquire the Brazilian cachaça brand, Ypióca, for approximately £300 million in cash.

Diageo will purchase the brand from Brazil’s Ypióca Agroindustrial Limitada, along with certain production assets, including a distillery in Paraipaba, Ceará, a bottling plant in Fortaleza, Ceará, and a warehouse in Guarulhos, São Paulo.

With a shortage of skilled labour in its booming mining sector, Australia has for the first time passed measures to allow migrant workers to come in and fill the gap.

The Enterprise Migration Agreement (EMA) announced last Friday allows companies with projects worth more than $2-billion (Australian) to recruit skilled workers from overseas on fixed contracts.

With a population of 22 million, Australia is struggling to find enough skilled workers at home to satisfy demand from China and other major markets for its abundant natural resources.

American readers will today be looking forward to grilling out over the Memorial Day holiday weekend.

This coming weekend will see the start of the great seasonal migration to decks, balconies and backyards to fire up gas or charcoal grills.

May is not only National Barbecue Month, but also National Hamburger Month. While cooking food outside has occurred throughout world history, grilling became a popular recreation in the US in the 1920s. The first charcoal briquets were produced by Henry Ford, using scrap wood left over from making Model Ts.

African Iron Ore Group Limited and Société Guinéenne du Patrimoine Minier have announced the formation of a joint venture company to develop and finance infrastructure for the Simandou South iron ore mining project in Guinea.

Société Guinéenne du Patrimoine Minier (SOGUIPAMI), the government of the Republic of Guinea's investment vehicle, will work with African Iron Ore Group within the framework of the new company, Infrastructures Minières de Guinée Holdings(IMG). SOGUIPAMI will own 60 per cent of IMG and AIOG will own 40 per cent.

SABMiller, the world’s second largest brewer, has reported strong profit growth for the year ending 31 March 2012, helped by increased sales in Latin America.

Net annual profits of $5.6 billion represent a 54 percent increase on 2011, although the results also include an exceptional gain of $1.2 billion from the sale of the company’s Russian and Ukrainian business.

Lower volume sales in North America and Europe were more than compensated by a 9 percent increase in lager sales in Latin America.

Ireland’s Dawn Meats has clinched a five-year, €300 million contract to process up to 18,000 tonnes of Irish beef annually for McDonald’s Ireland.

In order to fulfill the contract, Dawn Meats has invested €14.5 million in a new purpose-built, state-of-the-art beef processing facility in Carroll’s Cross, Co Waterford, creating 65 new jobs. In addition, over 100 construction jobs have been created during the construction phase of the facility, which commenced in December 2011.

Canadian junior exploration company Argex Mining Inc. has been collaborating with global specialist chemicals company PPG Industries on a project that could revolutionise pigment supply in the paint industry. President and CEO Roy Bonnell talks to Gay Sutton about producing paint quality titanium dioxide pigment grade directly from run-of-mine ore.

Exploiting Canada’s mineral riches is encouraging new technologies to be put to the test, as Alan Swaby learns from general manager Long Habour Operations Don Stevens, Long Harbour Processing Plant construction project director Rinaldo Stefan, and corporate affairs manager Bob Carter.

There are two things an ambitious engineer wants to see on his CV: big projects and ground breaking technology. For those lucky enough to be working for Vale on the Long Harbour project in Newfoundland, they will have both.

CSRAméricas 2012, the region’s leading annual event on corporate social responsibility, opened this week in Quito, Ecuador.

The inauguration was attended by Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and Inter-American Development Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno, who called on firms to adopt innovative means for including disadvantaged people in the workforce and making them partners across the value chain.

Moreno also stressed the importance of innovation for developing growth models that do not rely on the intensive use of natural resources.

Nobody’s perfect. What quality or ability do you wish you had?