Hailing the move as a historic step towards regional integration, the countries revealed the deal would eliminate up to 90 percent of merchandise tariffs between them with months, with the remaining ten percent disappearing by the end of the decade.

The countries also agreed to abolish the need for tourist and business visas, allowing their citizens, which have a combined population of 210 million people, to travel more easily between the four countries.

The US company, which specialises in using turbines mounted on tethered kites or wings to generate power, is to become part of Google X, the secretive research and development arm of the business.

It is estimated that the 40MW farm off the north-west coast of Lewis will ultimately produce enough energy to power around 30,000 homes.

Wave energy firm Aquamarine Power said it would begin installing its Oyster devices in the next few years, once grid infrastructure is put in place. The project will be carried out by Aquamarine subsidiary Lewis Wave Power Limited.

It was in 1986 that Stephan Roux, an experienced restaurant manager before becoming a serial entrepreneur, decided to go into the business of making ice cream. In fact within the space of five years he had founded two companies - the first was Cream Star based at Ga-Rankuwa to the west of Pretoria, the second Avondale with its HQ and manufacturing facility at Silverton on the east side of the city.

It has happened. Vanessa Guthrie told us she was not anxious about the twice delayed approval by Australia's Federal Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities Tony Burke to go ahead with Toro Energy's A$269 million Wiluna uranium mine, but the uncertainty must have cast a bit of a cloud over the Easter break.

Perseus Mining is very much a team effort: an overnight success that was 25 years in the making, as one of its founders Mark Calderwood has described it. Calderwood, the current chairman Reg Gillard and exec director Colin Carson have been taking an active interest in the under-explored mineral deposits of West Africa for that long, but it was not until 2004 that, having secured a couple of gold bearing deposits in Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire and the Kyrgyz Republic that they formed a company and floated it on the ASX.

Les Gaz Industriels Limited (LGI) was originally incorporated as a private company in 1952, with 100 percent Mauritian equity and the core aim of producing oxygen and acetylene for metal cutting and welding purposes. Eleven years later a majority stake in the business was acquired by leading South African gas company African Oxygen Ltd (Afrox).

Analysts talk of Vietnam becoming the fastest growing Asian economy, reaching a ten percent growth rate within the next twelve years with one of the main drivers being its natural resources. The country has significant known deposits of many bulk and niche minerals, including bauxite, rare earths, tungsten, titanium, phosphate, coal and iron ore but with the exception of its coal most current mining operations are on a small scale.