Search Results for: united nations

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo
THE UNITED States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) will provide technical assistance to Sri Lanka so it can comply with the rules of the US Container Security Initiative. The agency has asked US company Aerospace

Services International Inc.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products (EMEA) and the United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have launched their first parallel scientific advice procedure since September’s signing of a confidentiality agreement regarding such cooperation. This first pilot exchange of views follows a request from a (unnamed) pharmaceutical manufacturer for guidance on approving orphan medicinal products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has lost patience with the United States and has moved to impose retaliatory duties on a wide range of US clothing industry exports over a row about American foreign sales corporations, which have been deemed illegal by the World Trade Organisation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL leather trade is facing a fall in demand for American raw hides, skin and finished leather exports, as well as leather finished goods and components, with the European Union (EU) planning to impose heavy duties such exports from the United States.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SHOULD international organisations be held liable when they fail to achieve tasks set out in their formal objectives? The question has been posed by the United Nations’ (UN) International Law Commission and is currently being debated at the UN general assembly’s legal committee.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SCANDINAVIA dominates the top rankings of a new International Telecommunication Union (ITU) global index on information and communication technology (ICT) access, with Sweden, Denmark and Iceland scoring the highest marks. The ITU says that the league table distinguishes itself from other indices by including new variables, such as education and affordability.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ALL but one of the commonly used forms of asbestos have been added to a United Nations blacklist, enabling countries to block further imports without being challenged in global tribunals such as the World Trade Organisation. Amosite, actinolite, anthophyllite and tremolite were added to the Rotterdam Convention Prior Informed Consent (PIC) list by an intergovernmental negotiating committee, meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.…

BY PHILIP FINE

DESPITE protests from a coalition of the major food associations, the US Department of Agriculture has laid out the specifics for its mandatory country of origin labelling (COOL) programme. The proposed rule identifies what products fall under the law and who is responsible for fulfilling them, with most cuts of meat and variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts and dairy products required to carry a "United States country of origin" declaration at the retail level.…

BY PHILIP FINE

UNITED States border authorities on the lookout for a new food smuggling racket from Mexico, after customs officials discovered an operation that involved one light truck and 756 pounds of processed sandwich meat. US Customs and Border Protection officers seized 81 rolls of Mexican baloney on Texas’s Paso Del Norte bridge from Juarez, Mexico.…

BY PHILIP FINE

THE USA could become a major pectin producer after a Penn State University (Pennsylvania) researcher developed a process to extract high-quality pectin from orange peels. The complex carbohydrate, used to thicken jellies and fruit fillings, has been traditionally slow cooked by Europeans using lime peels imported from Mexico and south America.…