Search Results for: Global Warming⊂mit=Search

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A SECRETARIAT running the United Nations’ Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP) has been opened at the Rome headquarters of the UN Food & Agriculture Organisation. The body is charged with promoting bioenergy, helping international exchanges of know-how and technology, promoting policies and identifying potential funding.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Commission global survey into counterfeit goods has revealed concerns about Mexico being a centre for the counterfeiting of fake medicine packaging and leaflets. The study of businesses, industrial federations and diplomatic missions was told the problem is particularly rife in the large cities of Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey, along with the northern frontier zone with the United States.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH, in Brussels, and KEITH NUTHALL

1. The Commission is a keen supporter of creating increased gas storage capacities. But who should pay for developing these facilities?

The Commission believes that investment in storage should be left to the market, and the costs allocated through market forces.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A UNITED Nations unit is coordinating the introduction of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) accrual systems across all agencies of the global body. The UN Task Force on Accounting Standards is overseeing the development of implementation timetables, which must see all UN agencies and branches adopting IPSAS by January 2010, except for peacekeeping operations, which must comply by July 2010.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

NEARLY a third of all confectionary sold in China are counterfeits of global brands, a new European Commission survey says. Businesses, industrial federations and diplomatic missions agreed: "For the confectionary business, the infringement causes more than 30% loss in sales value every year", and they stressed the difficulty of preventing such offences through legal action.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

IT’S COMMONLY acknowledged that, whatever its merits, the globalisation of world trade and commerce brings with it vastly enhanced opportunities for money laundering. As the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) points out, in an online report explaining its work, the world-wide spread of inter-connected financial markets greatly extends the range of countries where anti-money laundering (AML) controls are absent or embryonic and enforcement is weak "and unfortunately, many countries particularly those classified as emerging markets, fall into this category."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) has released global figures on imports and exports of food commodities for 2004. See

http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/agric_e/agric_e.htm, then ‘Data: Members’ shares of world trade in agricultural products’, then ‘G/AG/W/32/Rev.9.’

ENDS…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CANADA, in alliance with Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, has successfully scuppered plans to place chrysotile asbestos on the ‘watch list’ of the United Nations’ Rotterdam Convention, a move that would have allowed importing countries to insist on prior consent before admitting any cargoes of this mineral.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission’s directorate general for trade has branded Peru as a global hotspot for cigarette counterfeiting and smuggling. In a worldwide survey of intellectual property offences, Brussels has noted claims from the tobacco industry that 50% of tobacco consumed in Peru is smuggled and 30% is counterfeit brands.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

HONG Kong and China have been branded as the world’s serious hotspots for counterfeit clothing and accessories, in a global European Commission survey of countries where product fakes are manufactured. The Commission’s directorate general (DG) for trade gathered the information from companies, diplomatic missions and trade federations.…