Archive

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE CITY of Santa Clarita, California, has launched America’s first nappy recycling programme which will pick up nappies from 500 families in special plastic bags. The recovered material will help make non-food packaging and products including wallpaper, oil filters, and shoe insoles.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission wants to forge partnerships between the European Union, Africa, 12 eastern European countries, the Caucasus and central Asia, to improve water supply and disposal. Brussels wants resulting action programmes to halve the number of people without safe drinking water and decent sanitation by 2015 and develop integrated water resources management plans by 2005.…

BY MARK ROWE
WARS are usually fought over coveted resources, such as oil, diamonds or fertile land. Now water, the most indispensable of mankind’s needs, is seen as the resource which may spark the armed conflicts of the 21st century.

Indeed, United Nations (UN) cultural and scientific organisation UNESCO is stepping up efforts to calm tension in some of the world’s most water-stressed areas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A COMPREHENSIVE programme to improve the response of European Union (EU) institutions and member governments to chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear terrorist attacks has been agreed by the EU Council of Ministers.

Following almost a year of debates, the approved plan requires governments and institutions to develop a comprehensive set of contingency actions, including political, economic, diplomatic, military and legal means, covering the prevention of attacks and the limitation of their consequences.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has approved the writing into European law of the international Kimberly Process on certifying the origin of diamonds. Its aim is to prevent the sale of so-called blood diamonds, which are tainted by being trafficked from mines in African civil war areas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched extensive public consultation on whether there is a need for a European Union (EU) system for recovering late payments and uncontested debts in a speedy and easy fashion. Brussels is concerned that some Member States have slow legal procedures for such cases, which pose particular difficulties for companies trying to secure payment from a foreign Member State.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Chamber of Commerce has warned investors to beware of a new twist on the Nigerian 419 Advance Fee Fraud after a number of fictitious banking websites were discovered to be falsely aligning themselves with legitimate offshore financial institutions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a formal review of compensation offered by the French government to its air industry following last year’s September 11 attacks, claiming that Paris had extended the aid beyond that which had been authorised by Brussels.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has speeded up its establishment of a European Maritime Safety Agency, which has been delayed because of disagreements within the EU Council of Ministers over the seat of its secretariat. As a result, the Commission has convened the inaugural meeting of the agency’s administrative board in its own Brussels offices, without waiting for a decision on where the organisation will be houses.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) judges and courts requiring assistance with cases that involve more than one EU Member State will be able to summon help from special international contact points from the New Year, when the details of the new European Judicial Network are posted on the Internet.…