While governments struggle to prop up their currencies in a recession, producers of precious metals see nothing but upside. Endeavour Silver Corp. has a business model tailored to the times, as Godfrey Walton explains.

Western Australia is one of the boom regions of the world, and its capital city Perth—home to 75 per cent of the state’s inhabitants—is the epicentre of its economic growth. Over the next three years, A$750 million is being invested in improvements to Perth Airport and its accessibility.

With diabetes on the rise across the Middle East, one company is hoping to help meet soaring demand for insulin with a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility that is the first of its kind in the region.

Obesity-related diabetes is on the rise in the Middle East. The World Health Organisation estimates that almost one-fifth of the region’s population is affected by the disease. And the International Diabetes Federation believes that the number of diabetics in the UAE will soar by a staggering 80 per cent by 2030.

When it comes to issues such as safety, security and emergency/crisis management, in-house knowledge may not always be enough. Bringing in specialist expertise ensures that no stone is left unturned in the implementation of robust and comprehensive systems to cover every eventuality.

Perth, Western Australia-based Alegra Safety is a consultancy offering safety management, risk management, emergency management, security management and OHS auditing to businesses of all sizes across the world.

The Scottish government has announced that Scotland’s first near shore commercial wave power array has been approved by energy minister Fergus Ewing.

Two new Oyster wave energy converters are to be added to an existing device at the European Marine Energy Centre at Billia Croo, Orkney, to allow operators Aquamarine Power to test the devices as an array.

Each machine has a capacity of 800 KW, bringing the total capacity of the array to 2.4MW.

Engineering specialist BESTECH has been named in Queen’s University’s School of Business annual list of the 50 Best Small & Medium Employers in Canada for 2012.

With offices in Sudbury, Timmins, and Toronto, Ontario, BESTECH specializes in engineering, automation, software development and environmental monitoring to assist companies in the mining, pulp and paper, forestry, oil and gas, manufacturing and other industries enhance their productivity, profitability and safety.

Netherlands-based NEM has secured an order from Saudi Arabia’s Arabian Bemco Contracting Co. for generators at the PP10 Combined Cycle Power Plant project.

The order is for 40 unfored dual pressure heat recovery steam generators with integral deaerators. The generators are designed with vertical gas flow natural circulation.

DuPont and Yingli Energy (China) Company Limited have signed a $100 million strategic agreement for photovoltaic materials to accelerate the adoption of solar energy.

The agreement was signed today in Washington, DC, in a ceremony organized by the US Department of Commerce and the Ministry of Commerce, People's Republic of China. 

Under the terms of the agreement, Yingli will purchase a range of trademarked photovoltaic materials from DuPont.

African Minerals has received notification from China’s Shandong Iron and Steel Group that the relevant approval has now been received regarding its proposed $1.5 billion investment in African Minerals’ Tonkolili iron ore project.

The approval came from the China National Development and Reform Committee (NDRC), and African Minerals is expecting the remaining government approvals to follow shortly. The closure date for the transaction has now been extended until the end of March 2012.