Archive
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.
SYRIAN TOBACCO SECTOR HIT HARD BY CIVIL WAR, BUT STILL SURVIVES, WITH LEAF PRODUCTION POTENTIALLY EXPANDING
The Syrian tobacco sector has been hard hit by the civil war and associated social conflicts, now stretching into their tenth year. Tobacco leaf volumes and planted areas have dropped by around a third since the start of these troubles, factories have been destroyed, and sanctions have forced international brands from formal trading channels in Syria.…
EU MINISTERS PROJECT PUBLIC ENERGY INVESTMENT SPLURGE TO HELP SECTOR RECOVER FROM COVID-19
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has backed a detailed policy statement telling the European Commission to develop a robust post-Covid-19 recovery plan for the energy sector.
A comprehensive set of ‘council conclusions’ welcomed that the EU energy sector had operated securely so far throughout the pandemic, but added there was a “need to remain vigilant to ensure continued reliability of the energy systems in case of a prolonged crisis”.…
QUANTUM COMPUTING OFFERS MAJOR EFFICIENCY BENEFITS TO TEXTILE SECTOR, ALONGSIDE SERIOUS CYBER-SECURITY RISKS
INTRODUCTION
Quantum computers were once the stuff of science fiction, the technology that was always 10 years away from fruition. But now they are real and operating. Google last October announced it had developed a device of 53-qubits (quantum computers’ ability to express a signal), nicknamed Sycamore, which it claimed in a Nature article [1] took 200 seconds to sample one instance of a quantum circuit a million times, which the IT major claimed would take 10,000 years for a state-of-the-art digital supercomputer to achieve.…
EU RESEARCH INTO COLLOIDS COULD OPEN DOOR TO NEW COATINGS DEVELOPMENT
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is funding an international research project that is developing new fast ways of making colloids – mixtures of one substance comprising insoluble microscopic particles suspended in another substance – the building blocks of most coatings. It is the nature of paints and coatings are that they are colloids – liquids that contain ingredients that give paints and coatings their colours, textures and functional abilities.…
EU ROUND UP – CEPE WARNS PAINT BIOCIDE LEGALITY AT RISK IN EU
CEPE, the European Council of the Paint, Printing Ink and Artists’ Colours Industry, has warned that an upcoming European Union (EU) toxic chemical law could see biocidal paints banned within the EU. Its concerns have been raised in consultation on a planned chemicals strategy for sustainability that the European Commission is to draft and release by September 30.…
ITALY PAINT INDUSTRY KEEPS POSITIVE AMID PANDEMIC GLOOM
ITALY’s paint industry is hopeful that the end of the country’s Covid-19 lockdown will herald a surge in business, interrupted by the pandemic. Gianni Martinetti, president of the Paints and Varnishes Group of AVISA, the adhesives and sealants, paints and varnishes and inks division of national chemicals industry association, Federchimica said: “The hope is that, after two very hard months of lockdown, we can start again with the same liveliness that was found in the first quarter of 2020.”…
BRITAIN’S COVID-19-HIT COATINGS SECTOR FEARS UNTIMELY HIT OF A JANUARY NO-DEAL BREXIT
AT a time when the UK paint and coating sector is reeling from Covid-19, the industry is bracing for another shock – a possible hard or no-deal Brexit. However, while paint and coating industry experts say the industry’s confidence levels are low because of these challenges, the pandemic has nonetheless encouraged the development and sale of innovative anti-viral coatings, opening potential new makers that may persist after the pandemic has ebbed.…
EU ROUND UP - NEW EU TAX LAW DEMANDS DIGITAL SALES PLATFORMS SHARE TRANSACTION DATA
A MAJOR expansion in collecting sales information within the digital economy across the European Union (EU) and beyond has been proposed by the European Commission, to crack down on widescale tax evasion.
The EU executive has proposed reforms to an EU directive on administrative cooperation between tax authorities (see https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/sites/taxation/files/2020_tax_package_dac7_en.pdf)…
NONWOVEN-BASED FEMININE HYGIENE PRODUCTS AND WET WIPES BRACING FOR PERFECT REGULATORY STORM
Unsettling images of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or pristine tropical beaches desecrated with debris have promoted the trend for plastics-free goods across a wide range of economic sectors, including nonwovens, pressuring industries and policymakers to respond to the problem.…
ASIA-PACIFIC REGION OFFERS GROWING PROTECTION TO WHISTLEBLOWERS, ALTHOUGH COMPREHENSIVE LAWS ARE USUALLY ABSENT
THE ASIA-Pacific region, even one-party states such as China, have developed legal protections for whistleblowers, although the comprehensive protection more commonly found in Europe is still usually absent.
South Korea is one jurisdiction leading the pack on developing robust whistleblower protections.…