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.
CAP THINK PIECE
BY ALAN OSBORN
DON’T hold your breath, but it looks as if the European Union may soon be moving away from the worst features of the Common Agricultural Policy. Yes, this has been said many times since Britain joined what we once called the European Economic Community and critics say every reform effort until now has failed – even the ambitious Agenda 2000 reforms could be said to have only really tinkered with the system at the edges.…
INTERNATIONAL NEWS ROUND UP
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation has launched a general round at its summit in Qatar, which will include negotiations on liberalising export and import regimes for so-called industrial goods such as fish.
These talks have a final deadline of 2005 and, said the meeting’s communiqué, will try “to reduce or as appropriate eliminate tariffs, including the reduction or elimination of tariff peaks, high tariffs, and tariff escalation, as well as non-tariff barriers, in particular on products of export interest to developing countries.”…
LANKA WALLTILE
BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
LANKA Walltile Ltd of Sri Lanka has recorded a gross sales increase of 1.25 per cent in 2000-2001, despite a boom of imports of cheap tiles from India, Thailand and India in the Sri Lankan market.…
GERMANY STATE AID
BY KEITH NUTHALL
GERMAN porcelain manufacturer Graf von Henneberg is facing an uncertain future, after the European Commission ruled that it must repay state aid of Euro 71.3 million, (DM 139.4 million), paid to it and a predecessor company, because it was paid in circumstances that break EU rules.…
RULES OF ORIGIN
BY KEITH NUTHALL
WHEN ceramic flags and tiles are glazed – a complex process, involving intense and controlled heat treatment – potteries will have legally created a new locally manufactured product, the rules of origin committee of the World Trade Organisation has ruled.…
BIOTERROR
BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union is to strengthen its research into defences against bio-terrorism by stepping up collaboration between countries, EU ministers agreed this week (Tuesday 30th). A new expert group will make an inventory of existing research, identify gaps and establish methods for harmonisation of definitions and exchange of knowledge.…
DUAL USE GOODS
BY ALAN OSBORN
A RANGE of compounds, chemicals, micro-organisms and toxins, together with test and production equipment and associated software has been published by the European Commission under its revised dual-use regulation for controlling the export of items that could be put to illegal use, including terrorism and warfare by rogue states.…
ECOCRIME REPORT
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, (UNICRI), has released a report on environmental crime, which includes detailed case studies on illegal dumping and trading of waste, including hazardous waste, and the illicit trade in materials that damage the ozone layer and that are radioactive.…
GLOBAL FUND
BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union ministers have been asked to approve the payment of Euro 60 million from the general EU 2001 budget to help finance the UN’s Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The money will be the first of two tranches, with the European Commission developing plans to give another Euro 60 million from the European Development Fund to be reserved for African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.…