Search Results for: Research

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Road Federation has called for a rethink regarding a proposed new four-year research programme, which will probably command a budget of around Euro 17.5 billion. It claims that the European Commission wants to focus too many resources on new areas of research, such as nanotechnology and genomics, at the expense of achieving the EU transport goals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has unveiled its latest call for research proposals to develop e-learning which will attract EU funding; Euro 7.5 million has been made available for projects promoting ideals such as setting up virtual universities.

This money is part of the Commission’s e-learning initiative.…

Keith Nuthall
A FRENCH government state aid system for producers of liqueur wines and spirits, funding promotional measures, research, technical support and investment, is under threat, because of a European Court of Justice ruling that it should never have been sanctioned by the European Commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has granted competition clearance to a new joint venture that will design, develop, manufacture and sell devices to route Internet and other electronic communications to homes and offices in Europe and the USA, via existing electrical wires, without laying any additional cables.…

KEITH NUTHALL
FISH farming companies and organisations have until September 30 to submit papers to the European Commission, if they want them to be considered as part of an ongoing review of the Common Fisheries Policy, that could create root-and-branch reforms to the way that Brussels impacts on the industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DIFFERENTIAL pricing in world pharmaceutical markets has been backed by a joint workshop involving the World Trade Organisation, the World Health Organisation, the Global Health Council and its national host, Norway.

A report released from the meeting has born out a general consensus reached by participants that “differential pricing could, and should, play an important role in ensuring access to existing essential drugs at affordable prices, especially in poor countries, while allowing the patent system to continue to play its role of providing incentives for research and development into new drugs.”…

KEITH NUTHALL
MEMBER States of the European Union have been placed under increasing political and legal pressure from both the European Commission and the European Court of Justice to improve the environmental quality of their water supplies.

France, for instance, has lost a long-running case at the ECJ, over its failure to ensure the availability of sufficiently clean drinking water in Brittany.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation is to target women’s exposure to passive smoking because of male smokers as part of its long-standing campaign against tobacco consumption. In a new monograph, it has called for bans on smoking in public places and advertising, pointing out that while worldwide 48 per cent of men smoke, the figure is just 12 per cent for women.…

Keith Nuthall
A REARGUARD action is being fought by the European Commission to save its ambitious proposals to impose a deadline of 2005 on the complete liberalisation of the EU electricity market. Following pressure from the French government, EU governments have agreed to rule the idea out, preferring a looser deadline, although this has yet to be formally agreed at the Council of Ministers.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
ONLINE bookseller giant Amazon.com, is stirring things up in the Canadian Internet book market, by announcing it will lower shipping costs for Canadian customers, effectively stiffening up competition for the future Chapters-Indigo combine, the country’s largest book retailer.…