Archive

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Colombo
THE INTRODUCTION of protective duties or quantitative import quotas is being considered seriously by the Sri Lankan government, as a response to complaints from local shoe producers that foreign rivals – notably from China – are dumping cheap product on the island’s market.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s research Commissioner Philippe Busquin has backed bids by both France and Spain to host the large ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) in, respectively, the cities of Cadarache and Vandellós. His support follows the announcement that Japan has formally proposed the city of Rokkasho as a site, joining Canada in making a formal application.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INTERNATIONAL initiative to cleanse the polluted Barents Sea of nuclear waste has been launched, with Euro 110 million being pledged by Russia, the European Commission, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. The Barents clean-up will be the first priority project of this Support Fund of the Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership; the sea, to the north of Russia and Norway, is commonly known as the largest repository of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste in the world.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BELGIAN government has been ordered by the European Court of Justice to bring its health and safety laws in line with the 1990 Euratom directive on the operational protection of outside workers exposed to the risk of ionising radiation during their activities in controlled areas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament’s industry committee has approved a European Commission proposal that the European Union and Euratom should sign up to the International Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
EASTERN European countries that built nuclear power plants while under the communist system never thought they would face deadlines for closing them down as a prerequisite for joining the European Union. Neither had they built in the next stage – decommissioning – into the prices charged for electricity in the way that the western European nuclear plant operators had done from the start.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FORMAL calls for research proposals from energy companies and institutes have been released by the European Commission, which has Euro 198 million to spend this year on studies that promote sustainable energy. The funding comes from the recently agreed Euro 16.2 billion European Union (EU) Sixth Framework Programme for research, which runs until 2006.…

KEITH NUTHALL
A DYNAMIC online forum on European energy policy has been launched by an international consortium; the European Union-funded INTUSER website contains information about current energy issues and questionnaires allowing specialists and the public to contribute to policy debates. The three year project’s website includes special sections on alternative, renewable, fossil and nuclear energy.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has agreed plans to lend St Petersburg’s Lenenergo Euro 40 million to finance the completion of a power plant project the bank wants to use as a model for similar integrated heat and power utilities across Russia.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union and its Member States will have to improve their efforts to curb emissions of greenhouse gases if they want to meet their targets under the Kyoto Protocol, a European Environment Agency report has claimed. The EU is committed to cutting its combined emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases to an average of eight per cent below 1990 levels in 2008 -2012.…