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BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE MEMBER States of the European Union reduced their emissions of the six key greenhouse gases by four per cent between 1990 and 1999, three per cent of which was achieved in 1998-9, according to a report from the European Environment Agency.…

BY MIKE FOX
AZURIX, the troubled water subsidiary of the giant energy company Enron, has confirmed that it would like to sell its north American water interests.

Azurix has a company policy of not commenting on its plans for acquisitions or divestments, but the potential sale of its north American subsidiary was revealed when it put in a bid to develop a US$150million water treatment plant that would eventually form part of a US$2billion distribution system in Houston Texas, home to the corporate headquarters of both companies.…

Keith Nuthall
THE UNITED States has announced that it will further liberalise its import restrictions on clothing and textiles, adding additional concessions to the third tranche of its scheduled implementation of the WTO Agreement on Textile and Clothing. Countries that have recently made their first announcement regarding the ATC’s third stage include Paraguay and Liechtenstein.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has appealed for information technology research teams to become involved in a project to identify common content characteristics of the most internationally popular European Union-designed websites.

Its directorate general for Information Society said that it wanted to “benchmark availability and usage of European digital content,” focusing on sites receiving the most hits in the EU Member States, Norway, Iceland and the United States.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
A TEST to detect counterfeit Cuban cigars has been developed by scientists at Canada Customs where fakes are smuggled in by the thousands by Canadian tourists travelling to Cuba.

The test detects the unique chemical structure found in tobacco leaves grown and processed in Cuba and are compared to counterfeits that do not have the same chemical signature.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States Trade Representatives Office has launched an environmental review of America’s existing trade agreements. It will alert Washington to potential environmental drawbacks of the deals, and will especially focus on the ongoing World Trade Organisation round on agricultural products and services.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States and the European Union are poised for another battle of wits at the World Trade Organisation, over the rights of governments to protect their own audio-visual sectors, especially through the use of subsidies.

WTO members are about to examine in detail proposals made by the USA on the liberalisation of the international audio-visual sector, which it wants to promote through the ongoing WTO round on service industries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
REGULATORY clearance has been granted by the European Commission for the acquisition of Unilever’s European Culinary Brands Businesses by Campbell Soup Co. of the United States. The sale fulfils commitments given by Unilever last year to obtain European Union clearance for its purchase of Bestfoods.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States government has formally appealed against the ruling of the World Trade Organisation’s disputes settlement body, which criticised the way it had erected anti-dumping duties against imports of Japanese hot-rolled steel products.

In a note to the WTO’s appellate body, American diplomats have contested “certain legal interpretations developed by the (disputes) Panel,” claiming that its conclusions “are in error and are based upon erroneous findings on issues of law.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EAST Asian shipping companies are expected to receive a boost from the ratification by China of the Bangkok Agreement, making one of Asia’s oldest trade accords the world’s largest in terms of market potential.

With China joining the arrangement – which is based on shared trade preferences – it becomes the largest regional trade arrangement, opening up a market with a combined population of more than 2.5 billion, said the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, (ESCAP).…