Search Results for: International business

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONSERVATIONISTS have welcomed a controversial United Nations (UN) report identifying wealthy western companies allegedly involved in wartime projects in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) they say may endanger rare great apes.

It says Barclays Bank, diamonds giant De Beers, British mining corporation Anglo American, Belgian bankers Fortis, South African miners Iscor, and the United Arab Emirates’ Standard Chartered Bank and 79 other companies have broken OECD multinational good behaviour guidelines by their association with mining, logging or road building in the Congo.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MICROSOFT, Vodafone, Oracle, AT&T, Nokia, Verizon, IBM and other telecoms related companies have joined a protest statement coordinated by the International Chamber of Commerce against a Spanish law restricting e-commerce.

Spain is not only requiring commercial websites based on its territory to register with its government, but also to insist that Spanish ISP’s block access to site that are deemed threatening to the country’s defence, public order, consumer rights or other values.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTERNATIONAL scientists coordinated by the Munich-based Max Planck Institute for chemistry has discovered evidence of environmentally damaging high pollution levels over the Mediterranean Sea. They believe high levels of sulphate and soot particles in the troposphere could reduce evaporation of the sea and reduce the amount of rainfall in the Middle East and north Africa.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE CHINESE state-owned Aluminium Corporation of China (Chinalco) has asked the Indian government permission to set up a 12-million tonne aluminium smelter and captive power plant worth INDRupees 17.5 billion (US$360 million). Of this investment, INDRupees 5.25 billion (US$110 million) would be in equity, with a 50 per cent foreign equity element, and the remaining INDRupees 12.25 billion (US$250 million) would be from international investors.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA and KEITH NUTHALL
THE GOVERNMENT of Sri Lanka is embarking on a comprehensive survey of the country’s clay resources as demand grows thanks to an official policy of promoting a home-grown ceramics industry, which is already the largest mineral-based sector in this south Asian country.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A RESTRICTED trade in cloth from wool culled from captured wild vicuna in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile has been approved by a conference of parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).…

BY PHILIP FINE

The US is one step closer to ratifying an international nuclear accident treaty. President George W. Bush has sent the United Nations Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage to the US Senate for a final vote. The Convention was introduced in Vienna more than five years ago, when it was adopted by the International Atomic Energy Agency.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MINING companies planning projects in the tropics should conduct detailed assessments of potential disruption to indigenous peoples, before going ahead, the United Nations has said. Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said that the same legally binding standards regarding environmental impact assessments should apply to anthropological checks on the “life-styles and cultures of indigenous peoples.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTERNATIONAL scientists coordinated by the Munich-based Max Planck Institute for chemistry has discovered evidence of environmentally damaging high pollution levels over the Mediterranean Sea. They believe high levels of sulphate and soot particles in the troposphere could reduce evaporation of the sea and reduce the amount of rainfall in the Middle East and north Africa.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE “CE” mark, denoting that a product was made in the European Union, is being abused by unscrupulous manufacturers and traders and is giving legitimate companies a bad name according to delegates at a recent international forum on market surveillance.…