Search Results for: united nations

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE AMERICAN government is going into overdrive to challenge a World Trade Organisation (WTO) panel ruling that some of its cotton production subsidies and export subsidies illegally break global commerce rules. Washington has already announced an appeal against the decision on a complaint from Brazil that US subsidies have depressed global prices and enabled American exporters to unfairly elbow out competitors.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) incoming trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has confessed to being “very worried” about the impact in Europe of World Trade Organisation (WTO) textile trade quota liberalisation at the end of this year.

Speaking yesterday (4-10) to a European Parliament hearing ahead of his taking office in November, he quoted reports warning that China could snatch 50% of the world’s textile markets, saying: “This is a huge challenge that we face”.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH
STAVROS Dimas, the next EU Commissioner for Environmental Affairs, was criticised as one of the weaker cards in the Barroso Commission pack when he appeared before a European Parliament hearing last week.

There was cross-party sentiment that the former Greek Industry Minister did not have sufficient experience of environmental matters.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A NASCENT tourism hotspot is being nurtured by the United Nations in Afghanistan, where the former Taliban government exploded the famous Bamiyan Buddha statues. The site also sports other archaeological remains and the scenic Band-i-Amir Lake, so is being visited by Kabul ex-pats Kabul and wealthier Afghans.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
DEATHS linked to asbestos exposure in the United States have skyrocketed and will continue to rise according to the federal government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which said that 1,493 people died from asbestos in 2000, compared with 77 in 1968.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States Department of Energy (DoE) “is set to cancel work” on its six-year-old FIRE (fusion ignition research experiment), the European Commission is predicting. Its research directorate general was convinced by Anne Davies – DoE fusion energy office director – branding FIRE’s copper magnets “dead end technology”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
COUNTERVAILING and antidumping duties imposed by the United States on Canadian exports of carbon and certain alloy steel wire rod have been undermined by a strongly critical ruling a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) panel.

US International Trade Commission (ITC) inquiries leading to the tariffs’ imposition in 2002 were challenged by Canada’s Ivaco Inc and Ivaco Rolling Mills Inc.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) says that European forest product consumption rose to a record 1.3 billion cubic metres in 2003-4, up 1.3% on the previous year. Its annual 2003-4 market review for the sector said that sawn softwood demand rose strongly in western Europe (up 5% to 79 million m3).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TOUGH and detailed regulations should control the planned exploitation by the oil and gas industry of the Barents Sea, off Russia and Norway, because it could additionally pollute a delicate ecosystem already contaminated with nuclear waste, said the United Nations Environment Organisation (UNEP).…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE USA’S Environmental Protection Agency has warned against eating more than half a serving a month of Atlantic salmon and trout raised in federal hatcheries in the north-east United States because of high levels of dioxins and PCB’s.…