Search Results for: united nations

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut

MORE than 7,000 construction workers are toiling around the clock on the first phase of the Middle East’s largest integrated medical complex in the oil rich Gulf state of Qatar, with top medical positions, including nursing managers, expected to go to British applicants.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
WAL-MART Canada Corp is consulting its lawyers after the retail chain was told to accept union recognition at a Quebec store, only the second time this has happened in the whole of north America. The Quebec Labour Relations Commission has certified workers at the Saint-Hyacinthe store, 60 km east of Montreal, as belonging to and represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada (UFCW).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE LATEST and probably last draft communiqué for next week’s World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Hong Kong (Dec 13-18) includes the hopeful goal of setting overall targets for liberalising cotton production subsidies worldwide. This has long been the determined ambition of west African states, who want developed world producers, especially the United States, to stop subsidising their cotton industries, payments that depress world prices, impeding exports from low-wage developing countries.…

KEITH NUTHALL
On the basis of existing policies and measures alone, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Slovak Republic, Sweden and the United Kingdom should reach their individual targets. The Netherlands and Luxembourg will achieve their targets with the help of credits from the project-based mechanisms.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE CONTROVERSIAL decision to allow personal data on European Union (EU) air passengers to be transferred to the United States has been declared illegal by a European Court of Justice (ECJ) advocate general. In a formal opinion, which may well be confirmed by the court, Philippe Léger, has said the EU Council of Ministers’ decision "does not have an appropriate legal basis" within EU legislation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ECUADOR has launched a dispute at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) alleging that United States anti-dumping duties imposed on its exports of ‘certain frozen warmwater shrimp’ were erected in breach of the WTO’s anti-dumping agreement. Calling for formal consultations (the first stage of disputes proceedings), Ecuador alleged US trade officials had erred in anti-dumping calculations through "zeroing negative anti-dumping margins".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is sending legal and accounting specialists to Nigeria and Kenya, to help them trace and recover money stolen by previous corrupt governments. The agency will “conduct in-depth assessments of (their) institutional and legal frameworks”, making detailed proposals to “overcome obstacles to asset recovery”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A UNITED Nations report has claimed diamond-exporting revenues have soared in peacetime Sierra Leone, rising 60% last year. By October 31, revenues from official 2004 exports had reached US$120 million, compared to US$71 million the same period in 2003.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

THE CANADIAN government has followed in the footsteps of the European Union (EU) by banning the use of lead acetate in progressive hair dyes namely, Grecian Formula 16 (Canadian sister of the fabled Grecian 2000 Cream in the UK).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

HIGHLY undiplomatic exchanges between the European Union (EU) and the United States over the vexed question of cotton subsidies have threatened to obstruct agreement at the already tough parallel talks on general agricultural liberalisation at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Hong Kong summit.…