Archive

BY RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg
THE CUT, make and trim operation at South Africa’s Mooi River Textiles company is currently under review. German entrepreneur Claas Daun acquired the business from Anglo American a few years ago. A spokesman for Daun’s corporation in South Africa said that the factory, which employs 150 people, had continued to lose money and unfortunately a number of jobs in the area would be affected.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has asked EU ministers to extend until December 2009 special tax advantages offered by the German government to Hochtemperatur-Kernkraftwerk GmbH to enable the company to completely dismantle Uentrop nuclear power station, shut down since 1989.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONCLUDING that the health of between 100,000 to 200,000 people is still at risk because of radioactive contamination from the Chernobyl disaster, a United Nations report has called for an international fight against the resulting pollution.

The joint study involving agencies such as the UN Development Programme and the World Health Organisation has claimed that 2,000 people have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer because of the explosion, and as many as 8,000 to 10,000 cases are expected to develop it over the coming years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EXPOSURE of European Union citizens to man-made radiation increased by about 76 per cent between 1987 and 1996, a new European Commission report has claimed, citing discharges from reprocessing plants in Britain (Sellafield) and Normandy, France, (Cap de la Hague) as the “most important” sources of this pollution increase.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE INTERNATIONAL Atomic Energy Agency has made its first visit to a nuclear establishment in North Korea since 1994, when the isolationist Asian state withdrew its membership of the agency.

The visit is understood to have been facilitated by the North Koreans’ desire to move ahead with their stalled plans for the development of two light water nuclear reactors.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
A SHELL company in Sri Lanka has announced that it has tapped into a lucrative latent demand on the tropical south Asian island for solar electricity systems, installing 5,400 units out of around 10,000 in the country in its first two years of operation.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development has approved a Euro 20 million loan for Lithuania, to improve the energy efficiency measures of a range of public buildings. Consultants are to help Vilnius prepare an action plan for making the improvements, starting work in May.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE CO-GENERATION of electricity from waste oil is being promoted in the European Union through excise duty exemptions, which have been erected in the face of official EU environmental policy, a new European Commission report says.

Its “Critical Review of Existing Studies and Life Cycle Analysis on the Regeneration and Incineration of Waste Oils” points out that Council Directive 75/439/EC on Waste Oils tries to make Member States prioritise regeneration over burning.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has authorised the takeover of Berlin district heating and electricity company Berliner Kraft-und Licht Aktiengesellschaft, (Bewag), by the diversified Swedish energy group Vattenfall AB, which also supplies heating services. Via the deal, Vattenfall will acquire full ownership and control over Bewag.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE ORGANISATION for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has issued formal guidelines to its (mostly rich and often European) member governments to use their financial muscle when striking contracts for electricity supplies and power projects generally, to impose conditions that favour environmental good practice.…