Search Results for: International business

From Alan Osborn
The fashionable term in setting up international energy projects these days is “flexible mechanisms” of which the best known is the trade in emission reductions, or carbon credits. The Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, which guides implementation of the Convention, laid down emission reduction targets for industrialised countries but allowed flexibility to meet them through the purchase of emission credits from poorer countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A HOLISTIC global campaign against HIV/AIDS has been agreed by Rome-based UN agencies: the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the International Fund for Agriculture Development and the World Food Programme. The trio will work to minimise the effect on food production of AIDS epidemics in countries where the disease is particularly widespread, namely Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
AMERICAN online book retailers are likely to be upset by the decision of the European Union Council of Ministers (finance) to approve its proposed new VAT requirement for books downloaded from the Internet. The system allows for online EU exporters to sell their goods without charging sales tax, but penalises websites based in the United States, (or other third countries), selling to consumers in the EU.…

Keith Nuthall
THE US government is likely to be upset by the decision of the European Union Council of Ministers (finance) to approve its proposed new VAT regime for digital products downloaded from the Internet; this system allows EU exporters to sell their goods without charging sales tax, but penalises importers, notably American companies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITH the insurance business being one of the most internationally sensitive of global economic sectors, it came as no surprise that the tragic events of September 11 had a dramatic effect on its fortunes, impacting seriously on the work of its regulators, especially in the European Union.…

Keith Nuthall
TIGHTER noise restrictions on commercial aircraft visiting European Union airports have been proposed by the European Commission; it has tabled a new directive that would allow the worst affected airports to ban aircraft that marginally comply with the existing Chapter 3 standard accepted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, (ICAO).…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE NEW European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has now virtually completed its legislative journey through the EU institutions and is set to begin operations in the first half of next year though we’re still not sure where. Helsinki was the favourite for the seat until the Italian prime minister signor Berlusconi rudely pushed the claims of Parma, dismissing the Finns as “people who don’t know what prosciutto is.”…

BY MARK ROWE
SINGAPORE’S Changi Airport has sold its stake in New Zealand’s largest airport, contrary to recent speculation that it was seeking to raise its shareholding in Auckland International Airport. Singapore Changi Airport Enterprise said in a statement yesterday that it had sold its 7.1 per cent stake for NZ$107 million, (S$81.3 million).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A new report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on conditions in the world shipping and shipbuilding industries makes grim reading. Clearly things were bad well before the attack on the World Trade Centre and the fundamentals have worsened since.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
YOU might not think it to look at them, but behind the heavy wrought iron Victorian doorlocks in the Houses of Parliament is what claims to be the world’s most advanced electronic access control system. This is the American-made Intellikey, sold in the UK and Europe by the company’s Milton Keynes-based subsidiary.…