Following the agreement reached in August between South and North Korea to reopen the jointly operated Kaesong industrial estate on the border between the two uneasy neighbours, the thaw has started. The first cars and trucks crossed the border on September 16 carrying more than 800 South Korean managers, and raw materials for the factories.

The stock rose 3.3 percent to reach $45.05 in New York. This comes as investors react favourable to the company’s efforts to better tailor its mobile site for advertisers, who provide most of the company's revenues.

Initially priced at $38 per share, Facebook stock soared in the hours following its debut, however in the months that followed its shares lost have their value. Efforts by the company to improve its mobile experience to attract more users have impressed investors, however.

The two fields have produced a combined total of nearly 400 million barrels of oil since 1998, however fresh estimates suggest that there are a further 450 million barrels still available, much more than originally thought.

Since 2012, a number of companies of all shapes and sizes based in Aberdeen, Shetland, Fife and other UK locations have benefitted from the contracts that have been awarded.

The on-going £3 billion upgrade of the fields is aimed at extending production to 2035 and beyond.

It was more than a decade ago now that Paul Peng, at the time working for another company designing his own unique grinding media, decided it was time to go it alone and set up his own business. It was this calculated determination that led the creation of Sino Grinding.

Mother Nature has shown time and again that she possesses the power to both amaze and terrify in equal measure. Nevertheless, what we have also seen on numerous occasions in the past is that mankind has the ability to take the most disastrous of events and turn them into something positive.

Balancing risks against opportunities is always a difficult call, and it is a problem that ASX listed Middle Island Resources takes very seriously. That is why the company, which was established to develop gold prospects in West Africa, has focused on countries that have an ‘acceptable’ level of sovereign risk, and in which there has been some precedent of successful mining.

Truly a natural wonder of our planet, the Swiss Alps have been attracting tourists from across the world since long before the construction of the first hotels and mountain huts in the mid eighteenth century. This continues to this day with the Alpine area as a whole attracting some 100 million visitors each year.

Classed as unconventional gas along with coalbed methane and so called 'tight' gas, shale gas is fast heading out of that category. In the USA it has already had a significant and irreversible effect on the economy, as evidenced by a recent report from consulting firm IHS which says the boom in domestic energy now directly or indirectly supports 1.2 million jobs and adds more than $1,200 to average disposable income – and that these figures will increase to 3.3 million jobs and $2,000 per household by 2020.

Almost twenty years ago, I had the opportunity to work with a major automotive parts supplier that was looking to significantly expand their business in the repair parts aftermarket. They saw this as a global opportunity, and one of the assignments I had was to describe the aftermarket environment as it evolved from the then-embryonic markets of countries like China and India to the differentiated markets of southern Europe and Brazil to the highly efficient and organized markets of North America and Japan.