Nokia will pay 1.7 billion euros for the stake. This comes as NSN starts to show profits following a series of cost cutting exercises.

The company hopes that with its complete takeover of NSN, which makes telecom network equipment, it can expand its reach into major growth areas including broadband technology.

The 322 million euros contract will see TAS take the reins of Esa’s “dark explorer”, Euclid.

Euclid will launch in 2020 and look deep into the cosmos for clues to the nature of dark energy and dark matter. The TAS contract, which will be signed in the coming weeks, completes the sourcing of the two major elements that make up Euclid. A contract to build the payload module, which will hold the 1.2 million telescope and two instruments, has already been awarded to Europe's other big space company, Astrium.

The country, the world’s largest diamond producer, has long campaigned for its diamonds to be processed, sorted, marketed and sold from within its own borders. The auction was conducted by the government-owned Okavango Diamond Company.

Later in the year, diamond giant De Beers, which owns the country's main mining firm with the government, will also move its sales to Botswana’s capital, Gaborone. Last year, the company moved its rough stone sorting operation, which had been based in London for nearly 80 years, to Botswana.

Tanbreez, though this does need explaining to the uninitiated, does just what it says on the tin. The name is a contraction of two close associates on the periodic table Tantalum (TA) and Niobium (Nb), their cousins the rare earth elements (REE), while the final Z stands for their elusive though incorruptible uncle Zirconium. All of these are sought after as new uses are found for them in, among other things, electronics, alloys, mobile devices, car exhausts and green power generation applications.

For many years South Africa has been the repository of the world’s platinum group metals (PGM’s), with some 80 percent of the globe’s total production of metals such as platinum, palladium, osmium, iridium, rhodium, and ruthenium originating from within the Bushveld intrusion, a large layered igneous intrusion within the Earth’s crust.

NunaMinerals is at the forefront of gold exploration in Greenland – and it is a company with a proven record of success. Its CEO, Greenlandic geologist Ole Christiansen was responsible for the discovery and initial development of what remain today the country's only producing mine, the Nalunaq Goldmine in South Greenland, as well as the Seqi olivine mine near Maniitsoq in West Greenland, currently on ‘care and maintenance’. NunaMinerals is currently working hard to develop the next generation of gold mining prospects.

Based purely on its geological structure alone, Greenland has what the vast majority of industry experts consider to be highly favourable conditions for the development of its own mining sector. Indeed its geographical location between Europe and the United States, combined with the high prices attainable for most of the raw materials that are present there, partially offset its absence of infrastructure and of sources of energy, and the harsh climatic conditions of the country.

The Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum is a Greenlandic government agency, working under the Ministry for Industry and Minerals and responsible for overseeing the growth of the nation’s resources. This is a burning issue in this volatile nation, which has just appointed its first female Prime Minister who is clearly keen to encourage the country’s emergent mining industry and has taken the initiative to lift the existing ban on the extraction of uranium.