Search Results for: united nations

BY PHILIP FINE

The US is one step closer to ratifying an international nuclear accident treaty. President George W. Bush has sent the United Nations Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage to the US Senate for a final vote. The Convention was introduced in Vienna more than five years ago, when it was adopted by the International Atomic Energy Agency.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, ALAN OSBORN AND PHILIP FINE

THE EUROPEAN Union, the United States and their various allies seem to be moving towards a deal at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) negotiations over the creation of a global register for protected geographical indications in the wine and spirit trade.…

BY PHILIP FINE

THE UNITED States’ Eli Lilly expects to introduce three new experimental drugs next year, despite being investigated by the US Food and Drug Administration. The company, which has been cited for more than 200 manufacturing deficiencies this year and has so far invested more than US$50 million to improve its performance, foresees regulatory approval next year to sell the new drugs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A RESTRICTED trade in wool from captured wild vicuna in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile has been approved by a conference of parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

The United Nations (UN) convention’s members agreed in Santiago, Chile, to lift a ban in trading these small beasts “for the purpose of allowing international trade in wool sheared from live animals…bearing the label vicuna Argentina, Bolivia or Chile.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
NEW LEGISLATION limiting the amount of noise that employees may be exposed to at their place of work has been agreed by government ministers of the EU nations and the European Parliament and is likely to become European law before the end of the year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Maritime Organisation (IMO) is drawing up detailed guidelines on the recycling of ship scrap, which should be approved at the United Nations (UN) agency’s assembly next year. IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee has noted that while the principle of ship recycling may be sound, working practices and environmental standards in yards “often leave much to be desired.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FINANCIAL restrictions should be imposed on companies, businessmen, ministers and soldiers charged with involvement in the shameless plundering of the mineral resources of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a United Nations (UN) committee established to investigate the problem has concluded.…

BY PHILIP FINE

WHILE it may seem that big brand names have been shut out of American confectionary shelves of health stores, in reality several multinational food giants have been very actively pursuing the organic foods sector, albeit through the back door.…

Keith Nuthall
BRITAIN remained an averagely taxed economy compared with its competitor rich nations in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), according to a new report from this international think-tank. It says that the share of Britain’s GDP represented by tax take remained at 37.4 per cent in 2001, the same as in 2000.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations’ (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation has welcomed the development of a privately funded fish farming sector in Saudi Arabia, following 20 years of research to identify the ideal fish for local aquaculture.

A note published by the FAO says that the Saudi Fish Company, at Al-Shaqiq near the southern Red Sea, is already producing 1,500 tonnes of fish-a-year; the National Shrimp Company, in the Al-Laith area, also on the Red Sea, is expecting to produce 10,000 tonnes annually soon; and the Gizan Agricultural Company is building farming facilities for 1,000 tonnes-a-year.…