Search Results for: Switzerland

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INTERNATIONAL Task Force on Commodity Risk Management (ITF) is to expand the use of innovative market mechanisms to manage the risk posed by the volatile pricing to key small-scale producers of certain foodstuffs in developing countries. The World Bank-associated body wants to stabilise production in commodity markets such as cocoa, cotton, coffee, wheat, soybeans and corn, where from 1983-2003, prices of many commodities have fluctuated from below 50% to above 150% of their average prices.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
ACCORDING to global consumption figures, Israel is the world capital of teenage soft drink demand, with hot weather combined with a competitive market to create something of a utopia for drinks companies. An international survey of soft drinks consumption published by the Economist by 15 year olds of both sexes suggests that Israel has the world’s biggest teenage consumers of carbonated and still drinks, colas, sodas, juices and the like on a per capita basis.…

BY RICHARD HURST
THE SOUTH African paint and coatings industry is in a state of change as a shift in focus towards overseas markets coupled with a need to protect local markets is pushing manufacturers to reassess their quality and production volume capabilities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has cleared the way for a drinks packaging merger between Switzerland’s Tetra Laval group, (a leader in carton production), and French company Sidel, which makes plastic bottle manufacturing machines. Judges upheld a ruling by the ECJ’s Court of First Instance that the European Commission had wrongly blocked a deal in 2001.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRENCH cosmetics giant L’Oréal has lost a legal bid to secure the European Union (EU) trademark registration of the term ‘Flexi Air’ for shampoos, conditioners, mousses and other hair products. This was successfully opposed by rival Revlon, of Switzerland, which had previously secured the registration of the word ‘Flex’ for hair products in Britain and Sweden and a range of cleaning and cosmetic products in France.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE LONG-RUNNING World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations over creating a geographical indications register for wines and spirits have taken a turn for the worse, a feat barely imaginable considering the talks’ snail-like progress. A special meeting of the WTO Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) council ended in deadlock, with the usual two camps sticking to their guns over whether the register should have legal teeth or not.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation (WHO) has called for international cooperation on testing potential vaccines for HIV/AIDS because it is concerned that the current boom in research could exhaust available clinical trial capacity. WHO vaccine research director Marie-Paule Kieny (CORRECT SPELLING) has called for trials to be shared amongst a number of sites, each of whom were responsible for testing vaccines on a particular strain of the disease.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITAIN and eight other European countries have signed a memorandum of understanding about constructing a groundbreaking X-ray research laser, so acute it could measure chemical reactions in real time. The UK, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Germany have agreed to negotiate in detail an inter-governmental arrangement for building an approximately three-kilometre-long underground laser generator.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EXPORTS and imports of sugar containing products sold between Switzerland and the European Union (EU) are now totally liberalised, under a food free trade deal agreed last October and now in force, with remaining duties and restrictive quotas being scrapped.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation (WHO) has called for international cooperation on testing potential vaccines for HIV/AIDS because it is concerned that the current boom in research could exhaust available clinical trial capacity. WHO vaccine research director Marie-Paule Kieny (CORRECT SPELLING) has called for trials to be shared amongst a number of sites, each of whom were responsible for testing vaccines on a particular strain of the disease.…