Search Results for: Czech Republic

BY ALAN OSBORN
WORK is a lot more dangerous and unhealthy in the countries that will join the European Union in 2004 and later, than it is in the existing EU. A study by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions finds there is “nearly double the risk to health and safety at work in the candidate countries.”…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE CZECH Republic has warned it may impose temporary safeguard duties on cocoa powder imports, which it claims have boomed following its imposition last year of protective duties on sugar substitutes. Current cocoa powder imports are 174.93 times higher than average, claims Prague.…

BY MARK ROWE
Jokes about slow-moving Skodas have long gone out of date but more than 30 Singapore car buyers may disagree, – they are still waiting for delivery of their Czech cars nine months after they each paid US$9,000 for them.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
REPRESENTATIVES from the governments of Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Turkey have attended training courses staged by the EU’s Joint Research Centre, designed to improve their performance in combating the illicit trafficking of nuclear material.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
THOUSANDS of tonnes of mildly radioactive steel could come onto the European market because of pressure on countries waiting to join the European Union to dismantle their decrepit Russian-built nuclear power stations. Aware of the need to assuage public distrust of even the lowest levels of radioactivity, the European Union’s Joint Research Centre is investigating the levels of radiation likely to be involved in this steel, taken from buildings that do not house the reactor itself.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ALMOST all eastern European countries applying to join the EU have asked for special transitional periods averaging three years to raise health standards at some of their food processing plants to meet EU regulations. Products from plants where improvements are still being made will not be able to circulate the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN AGREEMENT supporting research into new technologies for food distribution has been signed by the EU, Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the management of European Union ‘SAPARD’ agricultural development funds by the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This means that meat producers in the two countries will benefit from annual grants worth Euro 22.4 and 18.6 million respectively, payable until the countries join the EU, maybe by 2005.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PRACTICE of allowing companies to deduct bribes paid to secure contracts overseas from their domestic tax bills is still widespread, with a United Nations report saying it was allowed in 50 per cent of countries surveyed. The paper on how the organisation’s 1996 declaration against Corruption and Bribery in International Commercial Transactions said that it was however banned in Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Iceland, Nigeria, Norway, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank has drawn up plans to lend First Quantum Minerals Ltd up to Euro 14 million to expand the Bwana Mkubwa hydrometallurgical copper production facility in Ndola, in the Zambian copper-belt.

Its aim is to boost its copper production from 10,000 tonnes per annum to 30,000 tonnes per annum, extending the useful life of the plant by at least six years.…