Search Results for: Environmental Health

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONCERN has been raised by the European Commission about a fall in European investment into biotechnology, which has matched the declining confidence of EU consumers in genetically modified products in general. Brussels’ first progress report on its action plan for European life sciences says that “urgent action” is needed to reverse this trend, especially as EU legislation has now been agreed regulating the development of GM technology and its potential adverse effects.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, in Nottingham
INTRODUCTION

REPETITIVE Strain Injury (RSI) is still by and large an unacknowledged problem for many employers. The complaint is formally defined as “work-related upper limb disorders” and its most common symptoms are pain, fatigue and weakness, most often associated these days with sitting a long time in front of a computer screen.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE NEED to help Bulgaria improve the environmental performance of its energy sector has led the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to break new ground by brokering an unprecedented private loan to clean what has been considered a dirty power-generating source: lignite.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development is talking closely to concerned environmental groups before agreeing to release US$300 million to build the planned key Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil and gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MOVES by European health Commissioner David Byrne to lift the EU’s five year de-facto moratorium on GM food have been blocked by Germany, France, Greece, Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria. He said new authorisations should begin, because the EU Council of Ministers has approved labelling and traceability rules.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s Scientific Steering Committee has approved two new rapid BSE post-mortem tests that will widen the choice of checks available to environmental health authorities seeking to control the disease. The European Commission said that they were “comparable to already approved tests…(and)… should help to create more competition in the field.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITH the World Trade Organisation in the midst of key negotiations to update its agriculture agreement, Geneva diplomats are often stressing the raison d’etre of the WTO Doha Development Round, namely that commerce helps the poor.

The idea is that by ripping down bureaucratic hurdles, duties and restrictive quotas for goods that developing countries produce in abundance – such as food – the WTO will provide their entrepreneurs with an opportunity to seize export earnings.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Environment Agency has released a comprehensive report promoting good practice within Europe’s waste industry, in a bid to ease governments’ reliance on landfilling, which it considers too dominant. Case Studies on Waste Minimisation Practices in Europe focuses on 10 initiatives undertaken in Europe during the 1990’s to promote and encourage waste minimisation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HEADS of veterinary services from all African countries have agreed that better monitoring of livestock movements, including the identification of animals, is required to stem the flow of disease amongst the continent’s farms. The Conference of the Regional Commission for Africa of the Organisation International des Épizooties agreed the steps would promote trade and local meat supplies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PRIVATE financing of Euro 235.9 million will be combined with loans of Euro 112.2 million from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to help rehabilitate and improve the environmental performance of Bulgaria’s privately owned lignite-fired 840 MW power plant Maritza East III.…