Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has drawn up plans to lend up to Euro 50 million to Zambia’s Mopani Copper Mines Plc (MCM), to help it rebuild and modernise the Mufulira Copper smelter. The project, said an EIB memorandum, would involve the installation of a new primary smelting furnace, a matte settling furnace, a sulphuric acid plant, an oxygen plant and an update of the associated infrastructure.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE CARMEUSE Group of Liege, Belgium, one of the world’s largest producers of lime, is to strengthen its presence in eastern Europe with a major investment in Romania that is being supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).…

BY MONICA DOBIE
CANADA’S Indigo Books and Music Inc. will reduce its book offerings by a whopping 25% to make room for sales of more gifts and accessories such as jewellery and greeting cards. At the company’s annual meeting, CEO Heather Reisman said over the next three or four years the proportion of the retailer’s sales commanded by books will be reduced to 60% from its current 85% but that the selection of books “will still be as meaningful.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITAIN’S small shops and off-licences can expect no help from the incoming European Commission in their fight against personal alcohol and tobacco imports. Answering a European Parliament questionnaire ahead of assuming office in November, Latvia’s Ingrida Udre promised to take a strong line on efforts to restrict this trade, assuming she is confirmed as taxation and customs union Commissioner.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN food industry has been asked to supply information to an official inquiry aimed at discovering products most prone to contain the carcinogen furan. This was said by the US Food and Drug Administration in May to be present in some foodstuffs exposed to high temperatures, claims that are being investigated by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BULGARIA has come under fire for failing to effectively reform its shoddy mental hospitals, which have been described by a human rights group as “dumping grounds where people are robbed of the right to any activity and wait only to die”.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A new Canadian study suggests that people suffering traumatic experiences during childhood or adolescence, such as parents’ divorce or physical abuse, are significantly more likely than others to develop arthritis later in life.

According to the research, published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, there is a 27 per cent greater chance of such people developing arthritis.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITAIN’S performance in reducing heart disease deaths could be much improved compared with many of its European Union (EU) partners, a new World Health Organisation heart disease atlas, has shown.

Dividing a country’s annual deaths from heart disease with its population, saturated fats and beer loving Britain had a comparative factor of 2, based on 120,530 deaths in 2002 amongst a population of 59 million.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN governments should exploit the scare tactics of the 1980’s when AIDS campaigns shocked promiscuous sex devotees and intravenous drug users into changing their behaviour, stemming HIV infections, the World Health Organisation has claimed. It fears dramatic increases in HIV cases in eastern Europe that are amongst the world’s worst, notably in Estonia, Latvia, Russia and the Ukraine “where the epidemic continues to spread unchecked”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SUB-SAHARAN Africa countries are restricting their growth through burdensome company registration regulations, claims the International Finance Corporation (IFC). It adds most countries in the region (bar South Africa and Botswana) have weak property protection laws. Chad requires 19 procedures to register a business, compared with two in Australia.…