Bottoms up!
"Australia puts health warnings on booze bottles"
Australia's liquor industry launched a voluntary program to label its products with health warnings Tuesday, possibly to pre-empt future criticism that it is contributing to excessive drinking that is part of the national culture....
Australia's culture of drinking goes back to 1788 when the first settlers -- British convicts and their jailers -- landed in the country after an eight-month voyage. They celebrated the end of their ordeal with a raucous booze-fueled party that established a time-honored tradition....
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And never mix beer with wine:
"Forklift tips, spilling $1 million in shiraz" Associated Press / July 23, 2011
ADELAIDE, Australia - An unsteady forklift dropped a container of fine Australian wine worth more than $1 million, smashing most of the bottles. The winemaker says he’s “gut-wrenched, shocked, and numb’’ after the loss of his flagship shiraz.
Sparky Marquis of Mollydooker Wines lost a third of his Velvet Glove Shiraz production after the accident that destroyed all but one of the 462 cases bound for the United States. Each bottle of the Mollydooker wine sells for $200.
Marquis said yesterday that when crews opened the container, “it was like a murder scene. There was red everywhere.’’
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I'm done with the shots!
"Sweetened bid for Australia coal firm" July 12, 2011|New York Times
Macarthur Coal, an Australian mining company, has received a sweetened takeover bid....
The company, based in Brisbane, was hit by floods that devastated Queensland last year. The natural disaster cost Macarthur tons of production, although that was mostly offset by a rise in coal prices on fears it would become scarce....
This time Peabody, a US coal company based in St. Louis, is teaming up with one of Macarthur’s largest shareholders, the steel maker ArcelorMittal.
Arcelor holds about 16 percent of Macarthur, second only to Citic, the Chinese state-owned investment company that has a 24 percent interest; Citic opposed the offer from Peabody last year.
Citic, in conjunction with another major investor, can effectively block a takeover. In Australia, an acquirer must have 90 percent of shares to move forward with its plans.
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