Search Results for: International Law

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States Department of Energy (DoE) “is set to cancel work” on its six-year-old FIRE (fusion ignition research experiment), the European Commission is predicting. Its research directorate general was convinced by Anne Davies – DoE fusion energy office director – branding FIRE’s copper magnets “dead end technology”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Environment Agency (EEA) says the old 15 member European Union’s (EU) greenhouse gas emissions fell by 0.5% from 2001-2, following increases in the previous two years. Sadly, proactive anti-global warming measures were not top of the agency’s reasons for the cut.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation (WHO) is preparing to train young public health professionals from developing countries, to spread international expertise in the subject worldwide. A US$5 million grant from Microsoft’s Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will fund the programme over the next four years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IF the tobacco growing industry thinks it has suffered enough regarding reductions in European Union (EU) farm subsidies, then it could have a rude shock at the hands of the new agriculture commissioner designate, Mariann Fischer Boel, of Denmark.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE is Europe’s laggard for implementing European Union (EU) environmental law, the European Commission has concluded. It its latest assessment of compliance with EU green regulations and directives, it notes 11 instances of France being recently censured by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) or threatened with legal action by the Commission over non-compliance with environmental legislation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PROGRESS has been made in global negotiations renewing the 1994 International Tropical Timber Agreement, which regulates trade in the commodity and expires next year. Representatives of 58 countries have asked UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) officials to draft a successor agreement for approval at a meeting next February 14-18.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has issued a standard, advising managers on how to deal with dissatisfied customers. Global standard ISO 10002 has been designed to enable companies and public services benefit from complaints, while ensuring customers are left as happy as possible.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
OWNERS of 22 offshore oil platforms off the California coast have filed a lawsuit arguing they need not comply with strict state rules controlling the discharge of toxic metals and drilling muds into the Pacific. The Western States Petroleum Association claims state law jurisdiction ends three miles from the coast.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE is Europe’s laggard for implementing European Union (EU) environmental law, the European Commission has concluded. Its latest assessment of compliance with EU green regulations and directives notes 38 cases of France being censured by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) or threatened with legal action by the Commission over non-compliance with environmental legislation in 2003.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
JACQUES Barrot, who has been given responsibility for transport in the new European Commission, is a close political ally of the French president Jacques Chirac and can be expected to take a tough line in defending French interests when Brussels draws up transport policy in the next five years.…