Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation (WHO) has praised China for securing a 30% drop in cases of tuberculosis since 1991, linking its success to a comprehensive anti-TB strategy called the Directly Observed Therapy Shortcourse (DOTS). China was, it said, now on track to meeting the WHO’s global goal of cutting TB outbreaks in half by 2015.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE CANADIAN government has proposed substantial changes to its current tough labelling requirements for tobacco products in an effort to reach more smokers. The new health warnings will include messages with both a health warning and a related benefit associated with quitting.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation (WHO) is preparing to train young public health professionals from developing countries, to spread international expertise in the subject worldwide. A US$5 million grant from Microsoft’s Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will fund the programme over the next four years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ALCOPOPS have had a bad rap. They are viewed, whether correctly or accurately, as the drink that weans young people from Coca-Cola and 7-Up into the world of alcohol, without them learning how to drink sensibly. They are also the drinks industry’s key innovation of the last decade, creating a new sector that – before a recent decline in popularity – seemed on course to eclipse some established products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has asked the vehicle leasing and management sectors whether it would like the existing patchwork of national passenger car taxation laws to be reformed and replaced with a more harmonised system.

Brussels is particularly keen to discover in wide consultation whether there would be support for replacing registration taxes with charges based on CO2 emissions, which would help the European Union (EU) meet its Kyoto Protocol global warming commitments.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FINNISH courts should examine their country’s ‘autovero’ car tax system to see whether it is unfair to drivers importing cars from other European Union (EU) member countries, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled. If national judges say it is unfair to charge the full tax on drivers who have already paid car tax in another EU country, then they should demand the system be reformed, said the ECJ.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITHIN the newly expanded European Union (EU), Poland is the cheapest country in which to buy a car, although under current trends that honour may not last long. According to the latest European Commission figures, Polish car prices are on average 9% cheaper than those in Finland, the cheapest country using the single European currency.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FRENCH government will have to defend its vehicle registration rules against claims at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) that they are so bureaucratic, they break European Union (EU) law. The European Commission has launched a case at the ECJ, focusing on rules requiring vehicle owners in some circumstances to present certificates of vehicle identification either issued by a manufacturer or France’s state technical services agency – the Direction Régionale de l’Industrie, de la Recherche et de l’Environnement (DRIRE).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPECIAL inspections required in the Netherlands on vehicles that have previously been registered in another European Union (EU) member country are an illegal restriction on the movement of goods in Europe, the European Commission is claiming. It has sent a legal final warning letter (a ‘reasoned opinion’) to the Dutch government, warning that it could ask the European Court of Justice to order the tests be scrapped, if the Netherlands refuses to abolish them first.…

Keith Nuthall
THE POPULARITY of Russian airports as stopovers for European airlines on trips to east Asia is to rise, with the Russian government agreeing to cut expensive fees charged for flights crossing Siberia. This came in a wide-ranging deal struck with the European Union (EU), helping Russia join the World Trade Organisation.…