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International News Services archives articles supplied to clients one year or more after initial publication. These articles are protected by a password and not made available to readers without permission from clients. They are used as a background resource by agency journalists. Upon client requests, International News Services will remove such articles from the archive or not upload them in the first place. They are included to demonstrate the breadth of topics undertaken by the agency and also to help promote clients’ coverage.

BREXIT CAUSES LOSS OF TEXTILE FINISHING CHEMICAL REACH REGISTRATIONS



THE EUROPEAN Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has warned that 3% of registrations of chemicals, including those used for textile finishing, made under its REACH system, have been lost through Brexit, with 2,900 UK registrations now void. This means their registrant companies can no longer sell these chemicals on the EU market.…

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ISRAEL EXPANDS SOLAR POWER TO BOOST ENERGY SECURITY AND REDUCE CO2 EMISSIONS



THE ISRAEL government is pushing ahead with an ambitious plan to expand the country’s solar power output, awarding two sets of tenders involving 840MW of generating power in the past 12 months and requesting bids for a huge single solar power plant in the Negev Desert for 300MW.…

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TEXTILE COATINGS EVOLVING IN LEAPS AND BOUNDS TO MEET NEW CHALLENGES



In the modern textile industry, coating, surface modification and laminating are the key means to tailor textiles and nonwovens to create functional products for specific, often high-performance, applications.

Such techniques have offered the sector potential advantages as it entered uncharted terrain in 2020, being at the forefront in humankind’s fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.…

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UK NEEDS HOLISTIC PUBLIC-PRIVATE CYBER SECURITY STRATEGY SAYS RUSI



The UK needs a dedicated cyber fraud strategy “underpinned with investment” and “designed and implemented with the support of UK business,” according to a February 22 paper from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) for Defence and Security Studies. “Cyber fraud now accounts for most of the fraud committed in the UK,” stated Sneha Dawda, Ardi Janjeva and Anton Moiseienko in ‘The UK’s Response to Cyber Fraud A Strategic Vision’.

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GOVERNMENT LARGESSE TO EASE COVID-19 IMPACT TARGETED BY FRAUDSTERS



THE ONSET of Covid-19 has caused many fraud problems, but a particular difficulty has been fraudsters exploiting the unprecedented government largesse released designed to prevent economic collapse at the hands of the pandemic. In the UK, for instance, the House of Commons public accounts committee issued a report in October (2020), saying that Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) had reported 8,000 allegations from employees that their employers – supposed to pay a lower level of wages to staff to receive furlough payments under the UK Job Retention Scheme – had not actually made these payments, or paid less than they should.…

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EUROPEAN COUNTRIES PUSH FORWARD WITH KNOTTY PROBLEM OF PHASING OUT THEIR NUCLEAR POWER SECTORS



 

WHILE investment into nuclear energy continues, especially in emerging market countries such as China, in Europe, this sector continues to dwindle in size, with some key countries sticking to plans to phase out the technology.

Concerns about safety and the environmental cost of its waste have encouraged Belgium, for example, to stick to its goal, as laid down in a January 2003 law (1), of stopping any nuclear energy production within the country by 2025, experts have told Energy World.…

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BIOFUEL RESEARCH GROUP CLAIMS AVIATION BIO-REFINERY FUEL CANNOT BE SCALED UP USING CURRENT FEEDSTOCK



A BIOFUEL research group has released a report that argues the feedstocks currently used by the world’s only refiner of bio-based aviation fuels cannot be increased to a large scale, and any significant increase would boost carbon emissions anyway. Biofuelwatch, a UK/US research and advocacy group assessing the impact of large-scale bioenergy, concludes that the model used by Paramount, California-based refinery, owned by Boston, USA-based World Energy, is “not scaleable”.…

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Streets of Lagos, Photo By Samuel Okocha

International News Services’ Nigeria correspondent explores Lagos city life in vivid photographic book

LAGOS is Nigeria and Africa’s most populous city - a fast-moving and changing metropolis that plays home to both the country’s super-rich and the super-poor. It’s Nigeria’s commercial capital. It is the hub of its dynamic music industry, growing arts scene and tech startups.

International News Services’ Nigeria correspondent, Samuel Okocha, has produced a photographic book showing a candid glimpse of the city. “It’s also a product of my strong interests in street photography which has been therapeutic for me,” Samuel said. “Street photography helps me slow down in a crazy fast moving city like Lagos.…

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COVID-19 SECOND WAVE IN MALAWI FORCES GOVERNMENT TO CLOSE UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES FOR THREE WEEKS



Malawi universities and colleges have been closed for three weeks from Monday January 18, following a second wave of Covid-19 that has taken a heavy toll, with daily reports of increasing infections and deaths.

This includes two cabinet ministers who died earlier this month – public works minister Sidik Mia and local government minister Lingson Belekanyama.…

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SOMALIA LAUNCHES NATIONWIDE QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS



 

Somalia education officials are moving ahead with comprehensive assessment of the country’s universities and colleges as this year begins. The assessment is being carried out by the ministry of education, culture and higher education’s National Higher Education Commission (NHEC), with the goal of ensuring higher education quality does not fall below unacceptable standards.…

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