Search Results for: America

BY MARK GODFREY, in Beijing

THE PRODUCTION of fake car parts is experiencing a "period of significant growth" in China, according to an umbrella group of foreign auto makers in China. In a report, 88% of members of the Automotive Working Group of the Quality Brands Protection Committee (QBPC), a coalition of multinational companies battling intellectual property infringement in China, have estimated losses to counterfeiting or piracy of auto parts, amounting to 15% of their overall sales.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has lost the latest World Trade Organisation (WTO) dispute proceeding over bananas. A panel found custom duties of Euro 176 per tonne on Latin America bananas breaks EU trade commitments.

ENDS…

BY LARS RUGAARD, in Copenhagen

REPUTEDLY immense riches looming below the glaciated surface of the Arctic Ocean have come within human reach because climate change is gradually thawing the world’s previously frozen-stiff polar regions. But this consequence of a milder physical climate has provoked tension between the countries with an Arctic Ocean, creating echoes of the long defunct cold war, and indicating a long and tough legal and political fight for what could be an important addition to the Earth’s undiscovered hydrocarbon reserves.…

BY ANDREW CAVE

PUBLIC place smoking bans are spreading like wildlife these days, with one country after another drawing up rules preventing tobacco use where it could expose non-smokers to second-hand smoke.

In the European Union (EU), this year, public place smoking bans have been introduced in England, Estonia and Finland, for instance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ICE experts from Europe and North America have warned of an increasing risk to tankers and other ships sailing near to polar regions from an increase in bergs because of global warming. Speaking at a European Space Agency meeting in Frascati, Italy, they warned disintegrating sea ice could lead to "significant hazards to navigation".…

BY ALAN OSBORN, in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex

DRASTIC cutbacks in British commercial fishing cased by European Union fishing restrictions drawn up by the European Commission – have ripped the heart out of many once thriving coastal communities in Britain. But, the rules mean millions of fish thrive, when populations might otherwise have collapsed.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

RESEARCHERS from the University College London and the US Environmental Protection Agency have found that over the last 20 years, lakes and streams in the UK, southern Scandinavia and eastern North America have been stained brown by dissolved organic matter, indicating a return to a more natural, pre-industrial state following a decline in acid rain levels.…

BY ANDREW CAVE

TECHNOLOGY generates more technology. Only a decade ago, the Internet had only just come into commercial use and many companies still didn’t have websites.

Before then, money launderers got along fine without internet frauds perpetrated through email and websites and the anti-money laundering industry had to manage without software devoted to online identity verification.…

BY SUZANNE KOELEGA, in Sint Maarten, Netherlands Antilles, JAMES FULLER, in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, and KEITH NUTHALL

A MAJOR shake up is looming in the political organisation of the Caribbean, with the impending dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles federation, and the creation of separate political units for its composite islands Curaçao, Bonaire, Sint Maarten, Saba and Sint Eustatius (Statia).…

BY MARK ROWE, in London, JULIAN RYALL, in Tokyo, and RACHEL JONES, in Caracas

PERSONAL care products – soaps, cosmetics, lotions and hair products – have always been important consumers of vegetable and animal-based oils and fats. Yet, this is a complex sub-sector of the global oils and fats industry.…