Search Results for: World Trade Organisation

BY MARK ROWE
THE LOCATION of Afghanistan’s national museum in a southern Kabul suburb must have been idyllic when it opened in 1931, set against a pastoral backdrop of farmland and mountains. The museum was once one of the richest cultural repositories in the world, home to a collection of the most elegant antiquities from the Ashokan, Greek, Buddhist, Zoroastrian and Muslim periods.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LAST week a political deal was struck in Brussels on the shape of European cookie legislation. The result, in footballing terms: Lawyers 5 – IT industry 2.

On the plus side, the anti-cookie proposals of Council of Ministers, (which represents Europe’s Member States and shares the right of veto over this law with the European Parliament), have been softened, which should give some breathing room to the EU’s hard pressed Internet industry.…

BY PHILIP FINE

AN ENVIRONMENTAL group is taking the world’s largest poultry company to court for allegedly failing to take care of noxious releases on one of their contracted farms. The Sierra Club alleges that the US’s Kentucky-based Tyson Foods failed to report releases of ammonia on four large ‘chicken houses.’…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has called for EU legislation that would insist that passenger ferry companies take out compulsory insurance, which would cover them for no-fault strict liability claims of up to Euro 250,000 per passenger.

In a Communication, (discussion paper), “on the enhanced safety of passenger ships,” Brussels also suggests that if a carrier is at fault, unlimited liability should apply.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A CLINICAL trials programme aimed at uniting EU and developing country research teams in creating medicines to treat AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in the third world was to be launched this month. The European Commission wants to dedicate Euro 200 million to the European-Developing Countries Clinical Trials Programme in the next Sixth Framework Programme for research.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Bank is lending China US$104 million to treat tuberculosis sufferers, strengthening its National TB Control Programme. The money will be complemented by a UK Pounds 28.3 million grant from the UK’s Department for International Development, which will help Beijing manage this expansion, notably by allowing the bank loan to be on-lent to China’s provinces at a concessional rate.…

BY MARK ROWE
TOYOTA Motor Corp plans to buy Chinese parts to make cars in its operations in China as a way to cut costs, instead of shipping them in from Japan. Toyota would procure discount door parts and materials including steel sheet from China’s leading steel-maker, Shanghai Baoshan Iron & Steel.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A TASK force of world food standards body Codex Alimentarius has agreed detailed draft guidelines on how to assess the safety of genetically modified foodstuffs and on how to trace and remove from sale any product that is subsequently shown to pose a hazard to human health.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Environment Agency has claimed that energy use is still rising in the European Union, mainly because of increasing transport consumption and has alleged that the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions could return to their 1990 levels by the year 2010 unless Brussels and Member States take firm action; this would include promoting renewable energy, said the EEA.…

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.…