Archive
International News Services archives articles supplied to clients one year or more after initial publication. These articles are protected by a password and not made available to readers without permission from clients. They are used as a background resource by agency journalists. Upon client requests, International News Services will remove such articles from the archive or not upload them in the first place. They are included to demonstrate the breadth of topics undertaken by the agency and also to help promote clients’ coverage.
DEPLETED URANIUM
BY MARK ROWE
A TEAM of scientists has visited Bosnia and Herzegovina amidst concerns that 12 areas of the country were contaminated with harmful radiation after being targeted by ordnance containing depleted uranium (DU) during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.…
SEVESO II
BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) so-called Seveso II directive, which imposes duties on industrial plants to protect against and prepare for accidents, has been strengthened by the EU’s Council of Ministers (environment); it has agreed to proposed changes extending the “appropriate safety distances” between industrial establishments and major transport routes.…
CO2 SINKS
BY ALAN OSBORN
UP to 30 per cent of the carbon dioxide emissions caused by industry in the EU could be absorbed by forests and other “carbon sinks” according to CarboEurope, an EU research project developing ways to reduce greenhouse gases.…
EU DATA PROTECTION
Keith Nuthall
EMPLOYERS will have to monitor changes to national workplace data protection regulations expected across the EU because of a wide-ranging and detailed public consultation launched by the European Commission.
Brussels has already concluded that there is a need to harmonise the widely divergent rules and practices amongst Member States, so legislation will inevitably be tabled.…
END OF THE WORLD
Keith Nuthall
INSURANCE companies must brace themselves for exposure to US$150 billion in liabilities from natural disasters linked to global warming, says a new United Nations report, co-authored by industry heavy hitters, such as Prudential and Swiss Re. ‘Climate Change and the Financial Services Industry’ advises the insurance industry to follow an action plan, to withstand policy payouts for floods, storms, forest-fires and other natural disasters, which it says “appear to be doubling every decade and have reached one trillion US dollars in the past 15 years.”…
FRANCE ECJ
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FRENCH government has been censured by the European Court of Justice for failing to write into its national laws a European Union (EU) directive, which would make it easier for lawyers to work across the EU.
Directive 98/5/EC on the practice of the profession of lawyer on a permanent basis in a Member State other than that in which the qualification was acquired imposes duties on national governments to register foreign EU lawyers and allow them to work on their territories.…
LEGAL AID
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has reached political agreement over the passing of a new legal aid directive, which would ease access to legal aid for litigants in cross-border civil and commercial disputes.
Once it becomes law, Member States will be bound to provide legal aid to citizens who cannot afford legal advice for such cases held within the EU, unless they deem that actions are “manifestly unfounded.”…
SOUTHERN AFRICA FEATURE
BY RICHARD HURST
MONEY laundering is all about fake respectability, transforming the seedy and ill-gotten into the legitimate and well-earned; so in Africa, where better to launder criminal money than through the continent’s most developed economy, South Africa.
Mike Savage, partner at Ernst & Young South Africa, said that the biggest problem facing African governments wanting to seriously tackle money laundering is to pinpoint the movement of funds that are moved across porous borders in a bid to cover tracks and conceal sources.…
WIPO ASSEMBLY
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GENERAL Assembly of the World Intellectual Property Organisation has streamlined and simplified the international patent application filing system as operated under its Patent Cooperation Treaty. Delegates agreed to integrate two key processes, namely an international search looking for existing patents that might throw doubt on the uniqueness of an invention and an examination of the application itself, checking whether it is novel, involves an inventive step and can be exploited industrially.…
EU DATA PROTECTION
BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT managers across the European Union can expect changes to their national workplace data protection regulations because of a wide-ranging and detailed public consultation launched by the European Commission.
Brussels has already concluded that there is a need to harmonise the widely divergent rules and practices amongst Member States, so legislation will inevitably be tabled.…