The Alps are Europe’s great natural boundary, cutting Italy off from the rest of the continent. Getting from one side to the other whether for purposes of travel, war or trade has been a headache ever since ‘the iceman’ Ötzi lost his life 5,000 years ago on the Fineilspitze, not 20 miles to the east of the Brenner pass.

How many times have you heard organisations make the declaration, “Our people are our greatest asset.”?

On December 24, 2013 during MSC’s weekly service to Colombo from KPCT, its vessel MV MSC SIERRRA-II became part of an historic moment when 641 TEUs were exchanged with the vessel, with a record hourly crane productivity of 48.6 containers and a berth productivity of 96.64 containers per hour. Two super post-panamax quay cranes, were used by the terminal in order to achieve its most efficient crane productivity. Not only was this Krishnapatnam Port’s best crane performance at KPCT to date, but also one of the highest achieved by any container terminal in India.

The agreement ends long negotiations with the current owners, Veba, the healthcare trust affiliated to the United Auto Workers' union (UAW). The deal will see Chrysler and Fiat pay the trust an initial $3.65 billion. Once the deal is signed off, Chrysler will then pay Fiat another $700 million.

Peru's government plans to sell up to 49 percent of state-owned oil Petroleos del Peru SA (Petroperu) to investors in a bid to secure private sector funding. At the same time part of the company, at least five percent, must be floated on the Lima Stock Exchange, though no date has been set for the IPO.

According to a new report Cleantech Redefined: Why the Next Wave of Cleantech Infrastructure, Technology and Services Will Thrive in the 21st Century, by research firm Kachan and non-profits As You Sow and the Responsible Endowments Coalition, the second most popular retail investment during 2013, after property, was in clean energy; a quarter of all venture capital in 2012 went into clean technologies; and in the third quarter of 2013 venture capital deals for clean tech were 64 percent higher than in the first quarter, clear sign of an upturn.

Just a week after evacuations started, most expatriates have now left the country. Thousands of foreign workers have been forced to leave including British Canadian, and Kenyan Australians, Ugandans and Ethiopians citizens among 17,000 people who were trapped in the city of Bor. In addition 150 Indian nationals have now left.

With limited capital, the company known as Zambeef was incorporated in 1994. Employing 60 staff, slaughtering 180 cattle per month in a rented abattoir, delivering meat via a single Land Rover and selling it through two rented butcheries, it was very much a small-scale operation to begin with. Nevertheless, through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions, the company went on to become one of Zambia’s largest agri-businesses, achieving a compounded organic growth rate of over 20 percent in real terms between 2003 and 2008 alone.