Search Results for: Climate change

BY KEITH NUTHALL
In another step expected to smooth the distribution of the country’s electricity, the World Bank’s Programmatic Adjustment Loan (PAL) programme for Romania will privatise all six distribution companies. In recent months, four European investors have taken over the companies that form the heart of the Romanian energy sector, in transactions totalling around €2.25 billion.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE RUSSIAN oil and gas industry is one sector where comparison with the matryoshka doll – the dolls beloved by tourists that open up to reveal a series of ever smaller dolls within – seems particularly apt. Inside the outer doll, which represents the industry as a whole, you find a smaller doll representing Gazprom, the natural gas monolith.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
PRESIDENT George W Bush’s re-election last November has pretty well ruled out any change in the US ban on Cuban cigars for the next four years – if anything, things are likely to get tougher. One of the last things the previous Bush administration did last October was to actually tighten the import ban by barring Americans travelling to Cuba from bringing back up to US$100 dollars worth of Cuban cigars.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
LARGE insurance companies will note with interest the UK government’s announcement at an international conference attended by Insurance Day, of plans to promote corporate social responsibility (CSR) around the world. Trade minister Nigel Griffiths told the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) conference said his government would create a “framework setting out the Government’s approach to CSR at the global level” which will be an attempt “to push the CSR agenda internationally.”…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission is drafting an action plan to improve transparency in its infamously opaque accounting procedures, with resulting legislative reforms maybe demanding the public unveiling of the recipients of European Union (EU) funds. At a speech in Nottingham before European Foundation for Management Development the EU’s new Commissioner for anti-fraud Siim Kallas noted with disapproval: “At the moment, in most member states, data on end beneficiaries (of Brussels’ agricultural spending) are not publicly available”.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
*Copper

Copper dropped in production between 2003-04 and the previous year. However, the Mt Lyell Copper Mine in Queenstown has deemed copper priced sufficiently to continue its development of a decline to the next production level. Copper prices made significant gains throughout 2003-4, notably in the second half of the financial year and reached the A$4,000 (UK Pounds 1,600) mark by June, a price not achieved since 1995.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE HOT topic in Gibraltar’s financial circles at present is Spain’s accusation that the Rock’s authorities have not been co-operating in the fight against money laundering. This is not an unfamiliar charge in the perpetual diplomatic row between Madrid and the British territory, but the latest airing of it has gained extra bite because of the enormous scale of the alleged crime, according to local newspaper reports, to run up to Euro 600 million and maybe more.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
*Copper

Copper dropped in production between 2003-04 and the previous year. However, the Mt Lyell Copper Mine in Queenstown has deemed copper priced sufficiently to continue its development of a decline to the next production level. Copper prices made significant gains throughout 2003-4, notably in the second half of the financial year and reached the A$4,000 (UK Pounds 1,600) mark by June, a price not achieved since 1995.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH, in Brussels
PROPOSALS for a new European Union (EU) wine regime, which are currently under review, will be unveiled in 12 months’ time according to the recently installed European Commissioner for agriculture, Mrs Mariann Fischer Boel.

In a wide-ranging interview in her Brussels office she admitted that the present arrangements are not working.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
WHAT does a paint industry do when its closest neighbour is a huge industrial giant with massive manufacturing capabilities and large product innovation budgets? Unfortunately, when examining the Canadian paint sector, the answer is not one of David and Goliath but rather a more practical and unromantic approach.…