Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND MARK ROWE
RESEARCHERS at the University of Essex have developed a new method of measuring rainfall accurately, that they claim could help improve the control of floods and reduce the potentially devastating losses that they can cause.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has welcomed the deal struck between the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to harmonise their systems by 2005, because it strengthens EU legislation requiring the use of IAS.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
FOLLOWING “significant reforms” to its anti-money laundering system, Russia

has been removed from the list of non-cooperative countries maintained by

the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, its parent body, the

OECD, has announced.

FATF president Jochen Sanio said Russia had given “strong assurances that

it will bring to a completion this reform process and the

implementation of its anti-money laundering framework.”…

Keith Nuthall
ACCOUNTANTS should help develop standardised accounting methods to operate greenhouse gas trading systems created because of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, says a new United Nations report, co-authored by finance industry heavy hitters, such as the Dresdner Bank Prudential and Swiss Re.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
Fraud appears to be on the increase in the European Union according

to the 2001/2 annual report of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) which

reports 552 new cases during the year. OLAF’s caseload increased by about

30 per cent compared to its first two years of activity.…

Keith Nuthall
IMAGINATIVE fraudsters have stolen a march on the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) by issuing a fake insurance policy in its name, which claims to protect businesses against the effect of an earlier false ICC insurance guarantee that the global business group unmasked this summer.…

Keith Nuthall
BRITAIN remained an averagely taxed economy compared with its competitor rich nations in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), according to a new report from this international think-tank. It says that the share of Britain’s GDP represented by tax take remained at 37.4 per cent in 2001, the same as in 2000.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a state aid inquiry into the planned reform of Gibraltar’s company taxation laws. It entails the abolition of company profits taxation, replacing it with a payroll tax, (Pounds 3,000 per employee), and a business property occupation tax.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
BELGIUM has been told by the European Commission to change its “discriminatory” laws covering inheritance and registration taxes or face legal action. Belgian law says that non-profit associations, mutual societies, trade unions and international scientific associations must be established in Belgium to qualify for tax relief on gifts or legacies.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations’ (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation has welcomed the development of a privately funded fish farming sector in Saudi Arabia, following 20 years of research to identify the ideal fish for local aquaculture.

A note published by the FAO says that the Saudi Fish Company, at Al-Shaqiq near the southern Red Sea, is already producing 1,500 tonnes of fish-a-year; the National Shrimp Company, in the Al-Laith area, also on the Red Sea, is expecting to produce 10,000 tonnes annually soon; and the Gizan Agricultural Company is building farming facilities for 1,000 tonnes-a-year.…