Search Results for: International business

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SIGNIFICANT delays are now expected to the introduction of a package of European Union (EU) food hygiene laws, with the European Parliament sticking to its guns over the need to allow public officials to inspect the slaughter of pigs and veal calves, a job the European Commission would allow abattoirs to undertake themselves.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
MANY professions are engaged in the war against money laundering but it seems increasingly plain that customs officers are at the very forefront of the campaign. Most crime (with some forms of terrorism a conspicuous exception) is committed mainly for financial profit and that profit has to be re-cycled if the criminals are to gain anything at all from it.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THEY’RE not to everybody’s taste, we quite agree, but there’s no doubt that flavoured cigars have a very devoted band of followers and can no longer be dismissed as a passing fancy. Indeed after speaking to a number of the big players it is easy to gain the impression that the flavoured, (or aromatic), segment has (along perhaps with filters) been the only one to buck the cigar sector’s trend of falling or stagnant sales in recent years.…

BY MARK ROWE
MENTION Albania and money, and the image that comes to mind is of the extraordinary pyramid schemes that gripped the country in the mid-1990s as the country stepped out into a post-Stalinist dawn. Albanians poured their assets into the schemes, with an enthusiasm that was as remarkable as it was misguided.…

BY EDWARD PETERS
DEPENDING on who you ask, Taiwan is either a renegade province or to all intents and purposes an independent nation, albeit one that currently lacks full international recognition. To suggest that it could be a fully functioning country in its own right to anyone in Beijing – the capital of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – is tantamount to treason.…

BY ALAN OSBORN and MARK ROWE
THE LIBERALISATION of electricity and gas supplies in the European Union (EU) was finally agreed in 2003 and will come into full effect this year for business customers and in 2007 for households and all others.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DOES ‘sir’ sound that different to ‘zirh’? Maybe it depends on the accent used, but whatever, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that these words are sufficiently contrasting to allow both to be registered as a verbal trademark.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE OFFICE International des Épizooties (OIE), the world animal health organisation, has reported outbreaks of blue tongue disease amongst sheep in Cyprus and scrapie in Brazilian flocks. The Cypriot outbreak has hit six flocks and involved 71 cases, almost entirely amongst females.…

BY EDWARD PETERS
THE PAST decade has seen China grasp an increasing share of the world’s cosmetic packaging industry. Low production prices and international manufacturing standards — to say nothing of an increasing appreciation of the beauty business — have all contributed to the People’s Republic upping its packaging profile.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has moved to swiftly approve legislation banning persistent organic pollutants (POPs) from use in the European Union (EU) by the end of 2007, agreeing the terms of a new regulation with the EU Council of Ministers.…