Search Results for: World Trade Organisation
10 results out of 12137 results found for 'World Trade Organisation'.
TAJIKSTAN
KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank, is lending US$250,000 to help establish a joint stock company owned by Tajik cotton farmers that will help increase yields and reduce debt. The new company, Sugd Agro Serv, will be unique in Tajikistan and will try to overcome key difficulties, such scarce technical assistance and equipment maintenance.…
CODEX REVIEW
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ARCANE procedures of the world’s food standards body the Codex Alimentarius could be made simpler and more transparent, because of the launch joint review of its work by the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation and the World Health Organisation.…
COAL COMPETITION
BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission is demanding that the French public coal corporation Charbonnages de France repay Euro 20 million, (Pounds 12 million), of aid granted between 1994 and 1997 to its government’s central treasury even though Brussels had originally authorised the payments.…
KOSOVO TOWERS
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Agency for Reconstruction, the EU organisation funding the rehabilitation of former war zones in the Balkans, is spending Euro 550,000 on rebuilding five traditional stone tower houses in Kosovo. Called kullas, they were constructed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and are all in a state of disrepair because of war damage and lack of maintenance.…
SULZER INQUIRY
BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced an in-depth investigation into the proposed acquisition of the textile division of the Swiss company Sulzer by Italy’s Promatech SpA, a subsidiary of Radici, the Italian leader in the weaving machines sector. The Commission said the competition authorities of a number of EU countries had requested the probe on the grounds that the deal would create or strengthen a dominant position in the sector, (potentially harming choice) and could affect cross-border trade.…
OCEAN FLOOR
BY KEITH NUTHALL
AUSTRALIAN scientists have produced what they call the world’s first virtual tour of a stretch of ocean floor, an invention that could provide undersea mining prospectors with valuable geological and topographical information.
The 3D map covers 2 million sq km of the 11 million sq km of ocean over which Australia has sovereign rights, off the island continent’s south east shores.…
CHINA LOAN
KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Bank is lending US$93.9 million to fund a China Sustainable Forestry Development Project, which aims to protect some of China’s most important remaining old-growth natural forests and associated biodiversity. The money will help protect vital watersheds and reduce the risk of downstream flooding, while ensuring wood supplies can meet the country’s growing demand for timber.…
NEW YORK CASE
BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been attacked for displaying “aggressive and unnecessary behaviour” against the tobacco industry after it announced that it intended to pursue its “smuggling” case against Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds and others in New York after the American court rejected the case on jurisdictional grounds.…
SASKATCHEWAN RETAIL
BY MONICA DOBIE
THE SASKATCHEWAN provincial government in Canada has recently passed a restrictive act that prohibits the advertising and displaying of tobacco products in retail outlets where people under the age of eighteen are allowed on the premises.
Shopkeepers are forced to hide cigarettes from patrons by enclosing them in non- transparent cabinets, behind curtains or blinds or selling them from under the counter.…
BIG SHOES
BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
AN INDIAN cobbler wants a place in the Guinness Book of Records, after creating what he claims is the world’s largest pair of shoes. At 3.71 metres and 1.13 metres wide, James Syiemiong is unlikely to find a customer, unless a yeti moves from the Himalayas to his home-district Shillong, in Meghalaya, south of Assam.…