Archive

BY ALAN OSBORN
DEFINITIVE anti-dumping duties have been imposed by the European Union on aluminium foil exported by China and Russia. The EU Council of Ministers said that the duties would apply on imports of aluminium foil of a thickness of not less than 0.009 mm and not more than 0.018 mm, not backed, not further worked than rolled and in reels of a width not exceeding 650 mm.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has said that the average annual budget for the Research Fund for Coal and Steel, that will replace the spending of the soon-to-lapse European Coal and Steel Community, should average at Euro 45 million. Around 72 per cent will be devoted to the steel industry, with the remaining 28 per cent being set aside for studies into the coal sector.…

BY MONICA DOBIE AND KEITH NUTHALL
A MERGER of the e-commerce operations of Canadian book retailers Chapters Inc. and Indigo Books and Music is to go ahead, before official federal government approval has been secured for the union of the two companies.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
PATRONS at restaurants and dinner theatres in Toronto will no longer be able to smoke from June 1 of this year, when a new bylaw comes into effect that promotes smoke-free dining.

Restaurateurs in the city have been given a four-year period to decide whether their establishment is a bar, (serving bar meals), or a full-blown restaurant; if the latter was chosen then no smoking would be permitted on the premises.…

BY KATE REW
LOS Angeles Airport (LAX) has begun a six-month programme to recycle food leftovers into power generators, which feed electricity into the local grid. The programme has been launched in partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Public Works.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has banned Glaxo Wellcome’s dual pricing system in Spain, where the company requires Spanish wholesalers to pay a higher price for pharmaceuticals, which they export to other Member States, than when reselling the same products locally.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SHORTAGE in veterinary medicines for meat and dairy livestock should be tackled by a pan-European licensing system, enabling animal pharmaceuticals to move more freely between Member States, the European Parliament has claimed. In a resolution on the problem, MEP’s backed short term plans from the European Commission to make more drugs available, after EU legislation capping residues of veterinary medicines in meat and dairy products led to the number of medicines being produced falling more steeply than had been expected.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE European Union Council of Ministers has agreed to allow France impose lower excise duties on diesel fuel used in local public transport, than is generally allowed under European regulations. The special exemption will last until December 2005.…

BY MONICA DOBIE AND KEITH NUTHALL
DAIMLER Chrysler Canada and Ford Canada have been trying to persuade the Canadian federal government to replace the now defunct 1965 Canada/United States auto pact with a system of assistance that would not be so open to a challenge at the World Trade Organisation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced that it is to make a grant of Euro 2.5 million to the Yemeni government, allowing it to make improvements to its air traffic control systems. The money will be spent on repairs and replacement of inadequate communication and navigational equipment in the major Yemeni airports, the continuation of flight calibration of navigational aids to maintain reliability and compliance with international civil aviation standards and a training programme for the staff of the Yemeni Civil Aviation Authority.…