Search Results for: International business

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has made the case for governments and inter-governmental organisations increasing their influence over cross-border accountancy bodies, such as the International Accounts Standards Board (IASB). In a green paper on financial services, Brussels said that “the debate about the future governance, funding and political accountability of global standard-setting bodies….are…

Keith Nuthall
THE ABUSE of alternative remittance systems and insurance policies to mask audit trails that can highlight money laundering is the focus of a new report from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The global anti-money laundering body lists techniques used in these industries by organised criminals in its latest annual ‘money laundering and terrorist financing typologies’ report.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AT least 12.3 million people are trapped in forced labour around the world, says the International Labour Organisation (ILO), with the overwhelming majority being in Asia. A new report said 9.5 million forced labourers were in Asia; 1.3 million in Latin America and the Caribbean; 660,000 in sub-Saharan Africa; 260,000 in the Middle East and North Africa; 360,000 in industrialised countries; and 210,000 in ‘transition’ countries, for instance in eastern Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the acquisition of paper merchants Scaldia, of the Netherlands, and Papeteries de France, by Finland pulp and paper group Stora Enso. The Finns had bought Scaldia from US-based International Paper (IP) in 2004, and the Commission launched a partly retrospective inquiry after Enso also decided to buy the French group from IP.…

KEITH NUTHALL
WORLD food standards body Codex Alimentarius has drawn up draft maximum levels for cadmium contamination within marine bivalve molluscs (except oysters and scallops) and cephalopods, such as octopus and squid. Codex’s committee on food additives and contaminants wants comments to be submitted by member governments and relevant international organisations by June 15.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FURTHER action to fight cigarette smuggling has been demanded by the European Parliament’s budgetary control committee, which underlined concerns about its losing Euro 200 million in revenue to European Union coffers in 2003. It adopted a report by Austrian MEP Herbert Bösch demanding better cooperation between member states and Europol.…

BY MARK ROWE
LEADING insurance associations have welcomed a recent agreement between the European Union (EU) and Russia that will liberalise the Russian insurance industry. At a summit in Moscow involving Russian President Vladimir Putin and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, the EU and Russia struck a detailed cooperation agreement on a range of economic and trade issues.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD food standards body Codex Alimentarius’ committee on food hygiene has released draft guidelines on controlling listeria monocytogenes in ready-to-eat foods and also more general advice: draft principles and guidelines regarding microbiological risk management in food manufacturing and handling.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A HEAVYWEIGHT European international consortium will spend Euro 20 million on trying to develop commercially-viable flat plastic light sources, that could be moulded to fit spaces in homes and offices. The OLLA project (‘high brightness Organic Light-emitting diodes for information technology and Lighting Applications’) aims to build on basic research into these materials.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FURTHER action to fight cigarette smuggling has been demanded by the European Parliament’s budgetary control committee, which has underlined concerns about it losing at least Euro 200 million in revenue to European Union (EU) coffers in 2003. The issue is of particular importance, because customs duties are generally earmarked for EU spending as so-called “own-resources”.…