In more than two decades since the first wind farm project was realised in 1992 at Bellacorrick, County Mayo, wind energy’s contribution to Ireland’s electricity supply has steadily risen to the point where it had installed 1.7GW of capacity by the end of 2012.

With the country now tasked with achieving its national targets for renewable energy by 2020, which calls for 40 percent of its electricity to come from renewable sources, an estimated 5,500 to 6,000MW of wind generation is required.

Located in the Canadian Shield of northern Saskatchewan and Alberta, Canada, the Athabasca Basin is the world’s leading source of high grade uranium and currently supplies approximately 20 percent of all that used across the planet. Covering some 100,000 square kilometres of Saskatchewan, and a small portion of Alberta, the surface of the basin consists of sandstone sediment varying from 100 to 1,000 metres in depth. It is at the base of this sandstone that uranium ore has been mostly found since it was first discovered in the region in the 1940s.

10. SAIC Motors

Market Value: $26.7 billion

JLR has been in talks with authorities in Rio de Janeiro for many months, but is now able to state that it will invest some 750 million reais into the factory, which it expects to begin production in 2016. The move is a further boost to the company’s efforts to strengthen in emerging economies such as China, where it is also building a plant at Changshu as part of a joint venture with the Chery Automobile Company.

South Africa’s first black president Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela died on Thursday December 5 at the age of 95 finally succumbing to to a lung infection that he had been suffering from for some time. When his death was announced, word spread quickly. South Africans flocked to pay tribute to this the father of the nation, while world leaders paid their tributes. President Obama said: "The world has lost an "influential, courageous and profoundly good man ... he no longer belongs to us. He belongs to the ages."

The 50-50 venture, which will take the name Dongfeng Renault Automotive Co Ltd, plans to build some 150,000 vehicles and engines a year, has been valued at $1.27 billion.

China is the largest car market in the world, where official figures have shown vehicle sales rose by 4.3 percent in 2012 to 19.3 million, however until now Renault has remained one of the few large car makers to lack a facility in the country.

Under Chinese trade laws, foreign carmakers looking to launch manufacturing operations in China must have a local partner.

The Maputo Corridor is a great African success story in terms of regional integration between the regions of Swaziland, southern Mozambique and the industrialised regions of Mpumalanga, Gauteng and Limpopo. And it is a traditional route for people and goods to take when they want to get from South Africa to the sea. In the 1970s 40 percent of South Africa’s exports went out through Lourenço Marques, as the capital of Mozambique was then called. The situation has changed out of recognition since then.