Search Results for: united nations

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AS the Iraqi regime faced potential invasion, the United Nations-run oil for food programme has continued to operate healthily, with revenues for the week ending February 21 totalling US$338 million from 11.9 million barrels. The UN’s Office of the Iraq Programme said exports averaged about 1.7 million barrels a day.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE CANADIAN government has stepped up to the baseball plate in response to calls from domestic and international law enforcement agencies that it raises its game in detecting, deterring and preventing money laundering, especially and terrorist financing. The result has been three new regulations that were brought into effect in January of this year.…

BY PHILIP FINE

THE UNITED States has offered several trading partners a complete elimination within five years of the tariffs it currently places on textile and apparel imports. US Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick announced the decision as part of its first offer for the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, a trading bloc of the western hemispheric countries (Cuba excluded).…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
WITH Australia sharing the front-line in President Bush’s war against terrorism with Britain and the USA, and also having witnessed its citizens dying in last year’s Bali nightclub terror attack, it is maybe not surprising that it has been tightening its money laundering legislation, especially as regards terrorists.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union is putting itself in a position to reap the economic rewards of developing renewable energy technologies ahead of the United States, an American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting has been told. “Europe has made a major commitment to renewable energy and is leading the United States in deploying it,” said Allan Hoffman, a renewables specialist and senior advisor to Winrock International’s Clean Energy Group.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE’S Suez water company and the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) have launched a joint drinking water improvements programme that will provide around Euro 300,000 in its first three years and will initially concentrate on the Volga-Caspian region.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) has agreed to admit officials from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and representatives from secretariats for other multilateral environmental agreements as observers to its ongoing Doha Development Round negotiations. The move has been welcomed by the European Commission, which wants these representatives to point out when the free trade talks are in danger of creating an agreement that may undermine or conflict with existing international environmental agreements.…

BY PHILIP FINE

THE UNITED States is offering to eliminate tariffs on imported mining equipment and unspecified "energy products" as part of their initial offer to create the proposed 34-country Free Trade Area of the Americas. Those sectors join a number of other goods, including steel, and environmental and wood products, for which Washington wants to offer duty free access to its markets under a reciprocal agreement, as well as improving market access for a range of services, including "energy services."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A NEW international aid scheme – which will help fund the marketing of organic dyes made in developing countries – has been given US$2.5 million by the Swiss government. This BioTrade Facilitation Programme is to be administered by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the International Trade Centre, (an UNCTAD/World Trade Organisation joint venture).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GROCERY Manufacturers of America group has applauded a new trade agreement between the United States and Chile. The GMA says the pact will spur freer trade of processed food to south America, and singles out the agreement’s proposed reductions in tariffs for such items as breakfast cereals, pasta and french fries.…