Search Results for: united nations

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).…

Keith Nuthall
AN APPEAL has been made at the United Nations, by the Global Environment Facility organisation, to private utilities and government organisations, asking them to invest in sustainable energy development in the world’s poorer countries

Mohamed El-Ashry, the GEF’s Chief Executive Officer was speaking at a ministerial meeting of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.…

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 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 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.…

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.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation has formally decided to set up a new Sub-Committee on Aquaculture, serve as an intergovernmental forum for information exchange, discussion and consensus-building on emerging issues in fish farming. The FAO said that the sub-committee would provide guidance for governments and international bodies on technical and policy matters.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
EUROPE, in wine terms, has pedigree. It is, after all, the home of the longest established commercial wine-making tradition. But these days, its primacy is being challenged by colonial upstarts, in the shape of New World vineyards, and guess what; the new kids on the block seem to be ganging up on the oldsters.…

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 MONICA DOBIE AND KEITH NUTHALL
DAIMLER Chrysler Canada and Ford Canada have been trying to persuade the Canadian federal government to replace the now defunct 1965 Canada/United States auto pact with a system of assistance that would not be so open to a challenge at the World Trade Organisation.…