After a long and arduous eight-month stretch trying to prick the interests of potential buyers, Australia's top supermarket chain Woolworths Ltd was finally able to sell its Dick Smith Electronics chain for $20 million to private equity group Anchorage Capital Partners.
Australian gold mining firm Noble Mineral Resources Ltd is poised to receive A$85 million ($88 million) from Chinese firm Zhongrun Resources Investment Corp as it approved the latter's increased stake ownership bid into the company to 42 per cent.
Cash-stricken North Korea has earned US$100 million over the past year by selling more than 2 tonnes of its gold to China.
Shortly after a month that it announced it is cancelling the $30-billion expansion of the Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine mega project, global mining giant BHP Billiton has asked the state government of South Australia to extend the deadline coverage of the indenture agreement the two parties signed in October 2011.
Australia's dwindling mining activity has again tempered jobs, this time numbering 150, after mining giant Xstrata PLC announced the impending closure of its Cosmos nickel mine in Western Australia on falling prices of the commodity.
Bell FX Currency Outlook: The Australian Dollar is steady this morning after falling to its lowest level in more than two weeks on renewed concerns about the euro zone sovereign debt crisis.
The Australian government intercepted on Tuesday afternoon two more asylum boats near the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. One boat has 49 passengers and the other 54, disclosed Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare.
The Queensland state government has announced it is poised to construct a second shipping project in Gladstone harbour.
New Zealand dairy company Fonterra Co-Operative Group Ltd. on Wednesday said its payout to farmer shareholders will fall by 19 per cent as net revenues for the 2011-12 season had remained flat at $19.8 billion.
Prices of iron ore and its consequent by-product steel will find a hard time to rebound in at least the next six months, not until China's economic growth posts record giant leaps, the chief executive officer of Shale-Inland Holdings LLC, a diversified steel services company, said.
“Dude, you’ve been friendzoned!” Say what? People who get too close to being in a relationship with someone they like sometimes find themselves in the dreaded “friend zone.”
A new research by the Housing Industry Association (HIA) titled 'HIA-COLORBOND® steel Housing 100 Report' has shown that the number of new houses constructed by Australia's top 100 builders have fallen to an equivalent 7.3 per cent to 48,130 in 2011/12, the group's lowest level since 1996/97.
China’s Huawei Technologies, one of the world’s biggest telcos, is not giving up on Australia despite earlier decision by the federal government this year to bar the company from participating in the $37-billion national broadband network (NBN) roll out.
Lynas Corp., which is all set to fire up its rare earths processing facility in Malaysia in October, could once again get embroiled in a legal court battle after its temporary operating licence (TOL) has been put on hold by a Malaysian high court until Oct. 4 pending an injunction filed by opponents to the plant.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said on Wednesday that Labor’s clear purpose for governance is “to offer the best of opportunities … and meet the needs of the Australian people.”
Bell FX Currency Outlook: The Australian Dollar remains below 1.0400 following a surge in Spain's borrowing costs and protests against the country's austerity measures.
Resources Minister Martin Ferguson warned Coalition leader Tony Abbott on Tuesday of the negative impact of constant Opposition anti-China messages on foreign investments.
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) has been forced to slash its 2015 earnings forecast as commodity miners and producers equally reduced budget allocations for project developments as a result of the debilitating global fiscal crisis dragging commodity prices down.
Despite world prices of steel currently stable, the price of the basic commodity used to make it, iron ore, has again continued to drop.
If elected, a Coalition government will immediately work to increase Australia’s defence spending by three per cent of the GDP, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said on Tuesday.
As the world gets more knowledgeable and conscientious of its contributions to carbon emissions, coal mining companies inevitably bear the brunt of the globe's waning interest in the fossil fuel.
Newmont Waihi Gold, a wholly owned subsidiary of global miner Newmont Mining Corp., on Tuesday announced of impending job cuts at its gold mine sites in New Zealand and Australia.
The New Zealand government has admitted on Tuesday that Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom was a subject of surveillance operations conducted by NZ’s domestic spy agency in 2011.
Stocks pulled back Monday as weak German economic data and discord over plans for a European banking union brought out sellers. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 20.55 points, or 0.2%, to 13558.92.
Bell FX Currency Outlook: After a dip overnight to below 1.0400 the Australian Dollar has recovered to the low 1.0400's as the quiet trading of the last few days continued.
Officials of the Venezuelan Government and Chinese company China International Trust and Investment Corp (CITIC) signed an agreement to develop the Las Cristinas gold mine, touted as one of the world's great undeveloped gold deposits.
The verdict was out in China as another personality close to Bo Xilai, once touted as one of the country’s rising politician, was sentenced to prison terms for covering up the crime trail left behind by Gu Kailai, Mr Bo’s wife.
Energy Metals, one of only five companies allowed to export uranium oxide concentrates from Australia, has shipped its very first uranium concentrate to China.
The federal budget deficit reached $43.7 billion by the end of financial year 2011-12, Treasurer Wayne Swan said on Monday, slightly improving from the forecast that the Treasury had provided in May.
Apart from Australia's agriculture sector, where China has shifted its focus away from commodities iron ore and coal, the world's second-largest economy has decided it wants to have a piece of Australia's dairy sector as well.
