Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ORNAMENTAL plant buyers will be given a new research tool to expand their range of knowledge about African tropical plants via a new European Commission and the Netherlands government funded research project PROTA, where African and European experts will review and document existing knowledge on around 7,000 species.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SECRETARIAT for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has released a report advising nurseries and customs officers about the world’s illegal trade in wild rare plants; the World Wildlife Fund says annual volumes are in the 100,000’s even millions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has granted Euro 32.1 million (Pounds 20 million) to help finance a promotion campaign for flowers and other agricultural products in the 15 European Union (EU) countries but none of the cash will come to the flower trade in the UK.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SECRETARIAT for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has released a report advising nurseries and customs officers about the world’s illegal trade in wild rare plants.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SECRETARIAT for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has released a report advising nurseries and customs officers about the world’s illegal trade in wild rare plants.

Said the CITES report: “This illegal trade can involve trade without documents and documents issued for different specimens and, very frequently, can involve fraudulent claims of artificial propagation that can be difficult for the non-specialist to detect.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NEW European Union (EU) emission limits for non-road mobile machinery have been agreed by the EU Council of Ministers, following nearly two years of debates. Handheld machines, such as handheld chainsaws, hedge trimmers, brush cutters, and power-cutters, will have to comply with tough new emission limits within four-and-a-half years, with larger mobile lawn mowers having to comply within 18 months.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN ATTEMPT by German garden equipment group Viking-Umwelttechnik to have a symbol composed of two rectangles – one green, one grey – registered as an exclusive European Union (EU) trademark has been lost.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that consumers would have difficulty associating the shapes with the company’s products, which include garden choppers and shredders; rotary cultivators; lawn mowers; front mowers; ride-on mowers; lawn aerators; lawn trimmers; hedge clippers; sweeping machines; motor saws; and brush cutters.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE CONCEPT of nation building is not new. Powerful governments have for centuries sought to create pliant political administrations which would do their bidding, without being directly under their control. It is, after all, in noone’s interest for a territory to descent into chaos.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation has inaugurated new training facilities for developing country trade officials, a result of the Doha summit that led to the current so-called development trade round. There, governments agreed that officials from poorer countries needed assistance in grappling with complicated trade law talks, so they could play a full part in negotiations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has approved a loan of Euro 25 million to Croatian air navigation services provider Croatia Control Ltd to help pay for the replacement of its core air traffic management system, including radar data and flight processing systems and communication equipment.…