BUSINESS

There is a shifting preference among Australians in their choice of alcohol consumption in favor of premium drinks over traditional beers.

Beach Energy Limited (ASX: BPT) offered on Monday $94 million to buy out all the issued and outstanding ordinary shares of Adelaide Energy (ASX: ADE) it does not already own.

Qantas passengers stranded last week by the grounding of the airline's fleet can get a free return economy flight to any destination within Australia, or a trans-Tasman flight to New Zealand and back.

Arianespace will launch its sixth satellite for Optus by 2013 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. The rocket will launch from Guiana Space Center, Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, Paul O'Sullivan, Optus Chief Executive, and Jean-Yves Le Gall, Chairman and CEO of Arianespace, announced in Sydney, Australia.

More thought needs to be put into the practice and implications of an industry move to fee-for-service, according to LJ Hooker Finance's general manager Peter Bromley.

House prices in Austria are continuing to rise rapidly, fuelled by strong economic growth and declining mortgage interest rates.

With a growing global consciousness of environmentalism and carbon footprints, comes the growth and opening of various green industries that haven’t previously had a chance.

The Australian Bankers' Association has again sprung to the defence of bank profits in the wake of the reporting season.

Lenders and brokers must work to build customer experiences rather than merely facilitating transactions, an industry consultant has said.

Loan Market has called for more rate cuts in the wake of the RBA’s first move in a year.

More evidence yesterday that the economy is stronger than many people think with a solid rise in retail sales in September and in the third quarter.

Global meat production and consumption have increased rapidly in recent decades, with harmful effects on the environment and public health as well as on the economy, according to research done by Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet project for Vital Signs Online.

Fitch has dealt an expected AAA rating to an inaugural move into covered bonds by both NAB and ANZ.

A TV deal between Nine Network and the parents of the 14-year-old boy on trial in Bali, Indonesia for buying marijuana was cancelled on Sunday.

By Kathleen Brooks, Research Director UK EMEA, FOREX.comHe survived a confidence vote on Friday but he has been ousted as part of a coalition deal with the opposition leader on Sunday.

Australian phone company Telstra International has been awarded three new licenses to provide customers in India Internet and national and international long-distance telecoms services under its joint venture with Microland.

Daily update on share prices and consensus price targets.By Rudi Filapek-VandyckService providers to mining and energy companies have received a few positive yawns in the week past as stockbroking analysts have been paying a few visits here and there, and the overall feedback from management teams, ...

Count Siri in as another headache for iPhone 4s users. The voice controlled assistant was down for some users on Thursday with users complaining online about their problems getting Siri to respond to voice commands.Siri is the built-in virtual assistant that uses voice commands to perform certain functions. It can make text messages and appointments. Siri's biggest draw is in using a network connection to search the Web for answers to the user's questions. It's this functionality th...

Apple Inc. is known for its revolutionary and innovative products. But that doesn't mean that devices meticulously designed by the top-notch engineers at Apple are free of any issues.

Australian sales of new vehicles in October posted a 5.3 per cent growth performance over a year ago, data from the Australian Federal Chamber of Automotive released Friday showed.

Prices of copper recovered losses on Friday on hopes Greece will no longer push for a planned referendum on its bailout package and after the European Central Bank slashed its benchmark interest rate, whetting anew investor appetite for the raw commodity.

Rio Tinto Chairman Jan du Plessis said on Friday that while Australia is known as the Land Down Under, present global economic realities is that it is Europe which is down under.

More Australian government agencies will shift to cloud computing services in 2012, independent technology analyst firm Ovum said Friday.

As floods continue to wreck havoc in Thailand, the death toll has now risen to 356 and more than 2 million had been affected within the 147 districts and 26 provinces still submerged by the worst natural disaster in a century in this developing Southeast Asian country.

Embattled Qantas Chief Executive Alan Joyce took responsibility for the grounding of the air carrier's planes and crew on Saturday and Sunday which stranded almost 100,000 passengers.

By Rudi Filapek-Vandyck, Editor FNArenaI joined Twitter. Not because I am curious what this celebrity has to say about her kids, or to read that another one is waiting for a connecting flight, impatiently.

A Briton revealed that Google has finally removed a fake online review of his business on Google's Places that mentioned him as a pedophile after his request to delete it have been ignored for 18 months. Unfortunately, the damage had been done.

Qantas said it will compensate all reasonable losses of passengers stranded during the two-day grounding of its planes over the weekend on top of giving refunds and re-booking affected customers.

By JP GoldmanIt now seems increasingly likely that Europe will remain a dead weight dragging on the global economy over the next year or so.