Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EXPENSIVE overflight fees charged on airlines crossing Siberia on long-haul trips are to fall following a wide-ranging trade deal struck between the European Union (EU) and Russia. It included a pledge by Moscow to revamp the charging system for EU airlines flying over Siberia, making it cost-based, transparent and non-discriminatory by 2013.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has formally approved a EU-US agreement over transferring airline passenger data to American authorities, ignoring a legal challenge to the deal launched by the European Parliament. Despite MEP’s voting to refer the issue to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), ministers have maintained it would not break the EU data protection directive.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) road haulage sector needs to better train its drivers so they can deal with the increasing demands of their work, a comprehensive report from the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions has concluded.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EXEMPTIONS from mineral levies paid on phosphate and nitrogen fertilisers in the Netherlands for garden centres or glasshouses have been confirmed as breaking the European Union (EU) nitrates directive by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The Netherlands’ MINAS system is based on the assumption that glasshouse flowers and crops take up 460 kg phosphates and 800 kg nitrogen per hectare per year, “considerably higher than for outdoor crops”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
Generally the application of geo-spatial technology for sustainable management of Tanzania’s forests and woodlands is still low. Thus, there is a big gap between developed countries and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in application of space science and technologies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE NEED to help developing countries acquire the software and technical know-how to interpret space imagery that boosts the environmental management of their territories has been examined at an international conference in the Sudanese capital Khartoum. This regional workshop on the use of space technology for natural resources management, environmental monitoring and disaster management, staged by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, the European Space Agency and the Sudanese government, heard an appeal from Tanzania for assistance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) should pump public money into nanotechnology research to enable Europe to regain its former leading position in this growing and increasingly lucrative sector, the European Commission has said. A policy paper (communication) ‘Towards a European Strategy for Nanotechnology’, says the it should use its cross-border coordinating role to create EU ‘poles of excellence’ in the sector, combining researchers with industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITAIN has been asked by the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers to develop for formal debate in Brussels its alternative proposal for registering chemicals under the EU’S proposed REACH (registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals) system. The UK has suggested a “one substance – one registration” approach, simpler than the tabled proposals, which have sparked criticisms of complexity from other member countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed the potentially toxic chemical trichlorobenzene (TCB) should not be used as a dye carrier, where its concentration is 0.1 per cent or more by mass. If the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers agrees, these dies could not be used or sold in the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GERMAN government has banned the sale and distribution of a line of tights – “Strumpfhose Hilka – Passend für alle Größen” (Hilka tights – one size fits all), because of concerns that they contain potentially carcinogenic illegal azo-dyes.…