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.
UNIVERSAL SERVICE
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament is pressing for large telecoms utilities to be given legal responsibilities not to exploit a possible future collapse in their market, by raising charges and hindering the entrance of new rivals.
MEP’s (June 14) have backed amendments suggested by the parliament’s legal affairs committee to the proposed universal service and users rights directive, which was tabled last year, as part of the European Commission’s wide-ranging telecommunications package.…
GERMANY
BY ALAN OSBORN
GERMANY has been served notice by the European Commission that it may be taken to the European Court of Justice unless it brings in national legislation to implement the EU’s gas liberalisation directive. Brussels has given Germany two months to respond to a “reasoned opinion” over its failure to incorporate the directive within its national laws.…
NOISE EXPOSURE
BY KEITH NUTHALL
POLITICAL agreement has been forged at the European Union’s Council of Ministers for employment and social policy on a new ‘health and safety: physical agents (noise)’ directive, that should introduce pan-EU workplace exposure limits.
Ministers managed to strike a compromise, ironing out some long standing disagreements on the upper limit value for noise exposure and whether there should be special rules for the maritime and air transport sectors, as requested by Greece, Italy and the UK governments.…
NUCLEAR EXERCISE
BY ALAN OSBORN
In a test of national and international procedures to be followed after a nuclear accident, a simulated emergency has been carried out at the French reactor at Gravelines, near the border with Belgium across the English Channel. The test, which took place on May 22-23, involved “small plume of radioactivity being vented from the reactor, covering an evacuation area of 10 kilometres radius,” said David Kyd, spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency.…
CONTAMINATION REPORT
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PROTECTION of the public from accidental contamination created by nuclear radiation does not just involve nuclear energy or defence installations, a European Commission report on radiation protection has pointed out. Other industries also use what are known as “elevated contents of naturally occurring radionuclides, (NORMs),” and these sites often require special radioactive clean-ups.…
SMALL BUSINESS ILLITERACY
BY DERIDRE MASON
MANY health and safety leaflets are going over their targets’ heads because the reading age needed to understand them is too high, delegates at the recent Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents health at work conference at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, heard.…
ODCCP
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP) has called for a balance to be struck worldwide between privacy rights and banking secrecy, to slow global criminal cash flows. Its appeal came in a statement released for a conference on “Illegal Economy and Money Laundering,” in St.…
COD AND HAKE
BY ALAN OSBORN
AN ACROSS-THE-BOARD reduction in EU fishing activity lasting for several years and including a cut of 40 to 50 per cent in cod and hake catches is to be formally proposed by the European Commission in an effort to safeguard the future of the fishing sector.…
ROCKY MOUNTAINS
BY KATE REW
A US Department of Energy study has concluded that natural gas bearing regions in the Rocky Mountains may be much more restricted by planning regulations than previously thought. Analysts have studied federal lands in the Greater Green River Basin of Wyoming and Colorado and found that nearly 68 percent of the area’s technically recoverable natural gas resource – as much as 79 trillion cubic feet of natural gas – is either closed to development or under significant access restrictions.…
EU ROUNDUP
BY KEITH NUTHALL
ALTHOUGH petrol and diesel consumption rose by 45 per cent in the European Union between 1985 and 1998, technological improvements meant pollution actually fell during this time, a study from Eurostat has claimed.
Between 1980 and 1998, the EU witnessed a 25 per cent drop in nitrogen oxides and non-methane volatile organic compound emissions, for which road transport is largely responsible.…