James Joyce will be spinning in his grave – Dublin's historic St James's Gate brewery, home of the author's famously beloved Guinness, is to start brewing fizzy foreign lagers like Budweiser and Carlsberg.

What's this I hear about the drinks boss Paul Walsh quitting?

The drinks giant Diageo hailed its performance in emerging markets yesterday after profits rose despite sales of Guinness falling again in Europe.

Takeover talk was on the cards for Bwin.party yesterday, as investors mulled over whether to take a gamble on the online gaming group after rumours emerged it could be in line for an approach from the US.

Drinks giant Diageo is to pay for 10,000 midwives to be trained in highlighting to pregnant women the dangers of drinking alcohol, it was announced today.

Diageo has agreed to buy out SABMiller's 20 per cent stake in its Kenyan unit for 19.5bn Kenyan shillings (£137m) through its East African Breweries unit.

Thousands of staff at the drinks manufacturer Diageo are concerned about their jobs following a warning from the company behind Guinness that it is planning a major restructuring.

The drinks giant Diageo is to acquire Turkey's biggest spirits company for £1.3bn, reinforcing its strategy of targeting fast-growing emerging markets. Diageo is buying Mey Icki from the private equity firms TPG Capital and Actera and said the deal would be earnings enhancing in the first year. Mey Icki, which has 70 per cent of the spirits market in Turkey, is the country's biggest maker of vodka through its Binboa and Istanblue brands.

The Government's watered-down plans to ban the sale of alcohol below cost price will not resolve the problem of binge-drinking, campaigners said today.

The TV and radio soundbites are too short to give the proper context to Professor David Blanchflower's inflammatory outpourings against Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England. But considering the extreme nature of Blanchflower's criticism, calling for King's head after his comments about David Cameron and George Osborne were disclosed on WikiLeaks, it's important that we should put his comments into the right framework.

Paul Walsh, the chief executive of the world's biggest spirits group Diageo, saw his annual pay packet jump 72 per cent to more than £6m last year despite sluggish sales and profits growth at the world's biggest spirits group.