Search Results for: International Law

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INCOMING European Union (EU) Commissioner for research Janez Potocnik has declared he would be prepared to build an ITER-scale fusion reactor at Cadarache, France, if there is no international agreement on where to build the prototype. In answers to a European Parliament questionnaire, he said the EU “could consider launching the construction of the ITER at Cadarache…with those of its partners willing to be involved”, although only at the “very last resort”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NATIONAL company office-holding disqualifications should be enforced across the European Union (EU) to prevent corruption, a European Commission policy paper (Communication) has suggested. Such orders are currently limited to the territory of a member country that made them, but the Commission has suggested that “certain categories of disqualifications should be recognised and enforced throughout the EU”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SUB-SAHARAN Africa countries are restricting their growth through burdensome company registration regulations, claims the International Finance Corporation (IFC). It adds most countries in the region (bar South Africa and Botswana) have weak property protection laws. Chad requires 19 procedures to register a business, compared with two in Australia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BULGARIA has come under fire for failing to effectively reform its shoddy mental hospitals, which have been described by a human rights group as “dumping grounds where people are robbed of the right to any activity and wait only to die”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN ANTIMONY mine in Macedonia will be a focus of an international effort to prevent cross-border environmental threats in south-eastern Europe. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) have agreed to cooperate on managing pollution risks from the Lojane Mine, which has also been a source of chromium.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
AS recently as 1989 Yugoslavia was the richest and most westernised country in eastern and central Europe and arguably among the more politically stable of them. But then came the collapse. The ethnic fighting of the early 1990s led to breakaways by Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina as independent states in 1992, leaving Serbia and Montenegro as the “Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” under Slobodan Milosevic.…

By Alan Osborn
The European Commission has created a new food safety advisory group that seems likely to become a focus for the development of policy acceptable to all the major players in this sector. The new Advisory Group on the Food Chain and Animal and Plant Health will bring together representatives of farmers, food processors and manufacturers, retailers and consumers and as such will mirror the “farm to fork” approach to policy taken by the Commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is planning to lend Euro 15 million to NPO Petrovax Pharm, a Russian niche pharmaceutical company, so it can build a green field plant near Moscow making new generation influenza vaccines for the ex-USSR market.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE AWARD to Cyprus of the key European Commission health and consumer affairs portfolio could signal a waning of Brussels’ enthusiasm for tougher food safety, environmental health and consumer protection rules. Cypriot Markos Kyprianou, 44, has been given the job in the new Commission that takes office in November.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has launched detailed technical guidelines on the use and development of smart cards carrying health data that could be read by doctors and nurses worldwide. The standard ISO 21549 is the latest in a programme of work on harmonising medical records carried out by the Geneva-based organisation; three parts have now been published and five more will be released next year.…