Search Results for: Belgium

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE PRESIDENT of the European Commission has indicated he favours a harmonised standard for European Union (EU) airport security that includes the installation of body scanners. José Manuel Barroso was speaking at the European Parliament on March 9, as Commission officials draft a proposed EU security response to the averted Christmas bombing threat over Detroit.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WITH a new European Commission in office, major decisions can now be made on pushing ahead with European Union (EU) energy policy priorities: Brussels has released a Euro 4 billion package of 31 gas infrastructure (and 12 electricity) projects.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CALLS have been made for major additional spending on European Union (EU) energy infrastructure, now a new European Commission team is in office.

The European Parliament’s industry committee has strengthened EU proposals to ensure member states have sufficient interconnected energy links to deal with any unexpected winter shortages.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A PROGRESS report issued by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) has claimed almost 300 tax transparency agreements have been signed by jurisdictions since the April 2009 G20 summit in London. This called on governments and sub-national administrations worldwide to adopt the OECD’s standards on revealing and exchanging tax information.…

BY PHILLIPA JONES

DESPITE ever greater restrictions on smoking, the land of the Gauloises (NOTE – SPELLING IS CORRECT) last year bucked trends with cigarette sales increasing by a small but significant 2% compared to 2008. According to British American Tobacco (BAT), the world’s second largest tobacco company, the industry benefited from a number of factors, most notably a reduction in the purchasing of cigarettes from neighbouring countries, pushing the number of sticks sold in France up 55.6 billion in 2009.…

BY GAVIN BLAIR, FRANCES WANG, RAGHAVENDRA VERMA and KARRYN MILLER

The Asian beer market, having overtaken Europe, is now the largest in the world, according to Japanese brewery Kirin. The region accounts for 31.7% of global consumption, compared to 30.8% for Europe, claims the annual report from the Kirin Institute of Food and Lifestyle.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AFTER the disappointment of the Copenhagen summit on climate change, it is perhaps encouraging to note that the auto industry – so often painted as the bad boy of the climate change issue – really is reducing its vehicles’ carbon dioxide emissions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AD Rutten, chief operating officer (COO) of the Netherlands’ Schiphol Group running Amsterdam airport had a busy Christmas and New Year. With Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year old Nigerian ‘underpants’ bomber, trying to blow up a A330-300 Airbus en route to Detroit from Schiphol airport on Christmas Day, Rutten has been working hard.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CO2 emissions statistics released by the European Commission show that while British motorists are ignoring government calls to buy smaller cars, their vehicles are at least getting greener. Across the European Union (EU) the CO2 emitted by passenger cars is falling fast: looking at 2008, a report said the average specific CO2 emissions from passenger cars were 153.5g CO2/km.…

BY EMMA JACKSON, KEITH NUTHALL, ALAN OSBORN, PAUL COCHRANE and BILL CORCORAN

WEST Africa is becoming a key region in the booming trade of illicit cigarettes, counterfeit copies of premium brands and smuggled properly branded and manufactured sticks. So much money is being made by criminals using this often-chaotic region as a hub to receive illicit sticks and then distribute them throughout Africa that this trade is becoming a matter of serious concern to the United Nations and even NATO.…