Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PUBLISHERS’ Association has welcomed a public consultation on improving European Union (EU) copyright legislation, calling it good European Commission “housekeeping”. Brussels wants the publishing industry to let it know by October 31, whether any of five copyright directives (1991/250 on computer programmes, 1992/100 rental/lending right, 1993/83 satellite and cable, 1993/98 term of protection, 1996/09 databases) contain contradictory passages, especially with newer legislation such as the information society directive (2001/29).…

BY MONICA DOBIE
CANADIAN bookseller, Indigo Books & Music Inc. has announced that it has more than tripled its annual profit due to a significant increase in online sales. Indigo earned CDN$4.3 million or 18 cents per share for the financial year ended March 31.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has formally threatened legal action against Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal for exempting all book lending institutions from their obligations to pay fees to copyright holders. If the countries do not within two months say how they intend to limit this universal right, the Commission could ask the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to order them to comply.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government is being formally threatened with legal action at the European Court of Justice over its refusal to scrap an excise stamp system, where tobacco traders pay duty on their products by ‘buying’ stamps from tax authorities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HIV and AIDS are so-ravaging southern Africa that local life expectancy rates are tumbling to where 30-year-olds are considered old men. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has reported cataclysmic falls in life expectancy in Zambia, where 32.7% HIV infection rates for adults aged 15-49 has cut average mortality ages from 47.4 in 1990 to 32.7 in 2002.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
AMERICAN scientists have warned that claims the USA is facing an obesity epidemic and that overweight people face serious health risks are exaggerated and misleading.

Paul Campos a University of Colorado professor and author of a book, The Obesity Myth, says that some government research is based on “junk science” that has caused an unnecessary fear across America.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Union (EU) research project designed to examine the effect on human health of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in food, is now up and running. The CASCADE (chemicals as contaminants in the food chain) network hopes to use its discoveries to increase public awareness of the problem and “promote better decision making among both consumers and policy makers regarding food” said a European Commission note.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONFIDENCE in the durability of public health systems is not high amongst continental Europeans, a new Swedish report has claimed. Without reform 81% of 8,000 citizens in seven European Union (EU) member countries fear that the quality of their healthcare will decline or stagnate.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) illicit drug control organisation has called for more detailed studies into whether particularly potent cannabis poses a serious health risk to the public. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) had been investigating claims from politicians and newspapers that cannabis resin and grass was becoming increasingly intoxicating.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
MILLIONS more Americans will have to start taking medication to regulate their cholesterol after recent US federal recommendations on new safe levels of LDL, or bad cholesterol, were significantly reduced. A report drafted by the National Cholesterol Education Programme suggests that the target level of LDL, the type of cholesterol that increases the likelihood of heart disease, should be less than 100.…