Search Results for: America

BY PHILIP FINE

THE US government wants to limit pharmaceutical manufacturers to a one-month window in which to challenge a generic patent. Washington says multiple, consecutive patent challenges have been costing American billions of dollars in drugs costs. The Bush administration estimates that its planned regulatory changes will save consumers an estimated US$35 billion over 10 years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AGRICULTURAL economists may disagree, but predicting trends in world food markets is not necessarily rocket science. A dose of healthy common sense can be as good a guide for the future demand for commodities as any amount of slide rules and complex economic equations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ALTHOUGH air traveller numbers fell last year, with the civil aviation industry still reeling from September 11, the global travel retail market for perfumery and cosmetics grew by 7.2 per cent last year, the strongest performer of all duty-free shop goods.…

BY PHILIP FINE

ONE of the most public forms of corporate ostentation, the annual report, is dressing down in America. Many US companies are eschewing glossy paper and colour photos, choosing instead to print out sober unadorned messages. The average budget for annual reports dropped from US$209,600 in 1999 to US$184,700 in 2002, according to the USA’s National Investor Relations Institute.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A NEW report on accountancy fraud has found that US companies are so desperate to inflate their earnings they are prepared to pay millions of dollars in tax on this fantasy income. Is this the ultimate example of pure greed trampling over common sense or are such businesses once more ahead of the game?…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AS with many projects inspired by the start of the next 997 years and the last three, the framing of the United Nations’ (UN) Millennium Development Goals was an ambitious enterprise.

Imposing statistically measurable targets for international organisations and national governments in making improvements in global poverty, education, gender equality, health, the environment and education, they have proved tough to attain.…

BY PHILIP FINE

AN AREA of northern Bolivia is to be the focus of an innovative Canadian aid mission designed to offer advice on preventing landslides in communities pock-marked with small mines, notably those for gold prospecting.

Canada will fund a team of scientists to help the community of Chima, a remote gold-mining village that was hit by a deadly landslide last month; the specialists want to ensure that they do not suffer from a repeat the tragedy and to help such communities better deal with such disasters, if they do occur.…

BY PHILIP FINE

KFC, America’s largest chicken chain, says it will be changing some slaughter practices in order treat its chickens more humanely. The Louisville, Kentucky-based company said that it has adopted eight guidelines for farmers that address breeding, hatching and raising of poultry, including adequate growth space and routine inspections of facilities.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A LOT of people are saying that cigar smoking may be in serious long-term decline given the way things are going in America. World Tobacco is inclined to treat the figures a little more cautiously. It is true there has almost certainly been a sharp drop in American consumption in recent years but, as Chris Boon, the premium cigar manager at British American Tobacco, points out, there are no true figures: “you draw own conclusions and arrive at an estimate.”…

BY PHILIP FINE

THE EXTRAORDINARY efforts by the American government to thwart terrorist financing have been leaning heavily on the USA’s financial services industry,

which continues to bear the brunt of the new anti-money laundering legislation.

Noone was surprised that the US government set its sights on the banks when it enacted legislation to make it more difficult for criminals to launder their illicit money or for terrorists to soil their clean money.…