Search Results for: Canada

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE COUNTDOWN is on for an almost total ban on seal fur and leather sales in the European Union (EU), with the European Parliament approving a new regulation coming into force by next March. This bans all sales of seal products for profit, unless manufactured from seals caught during traditional hunts of Inuit dwellers of the Canadian, Russian, Greenland and Alaskan Arctic and sub-Arctic.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SEA cucumbers – oddly shaped seafood rarely eaten in the west – are under pressure of overfishing because of Asian demand, the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is warning. Indeed, the FAO wants consideration of conservation management plans, just like the oft-criticised systems of quotas, breeding season protection and minimum catch sizes used for most finfish.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

KEY regulatory agencies have signed an international agreement to work together in significantly reducing the number of animals used in experiments worldwide. The Japanese Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods, the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM), the US National Toxicology Program and Canada’s Environmental Health Science and Research Bureau have initialed a memorandum of cooperation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

FOUR international organisations have signed an agreement to work together in significantly reducing the number of animals used in biomedical and other experiments. The Japanese Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods, the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM), the US National Toxicology Program and Canada’s Environmental Health Science and Research Bureau have initialed a memorandum of cooperation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A MAJOR cigarette smuggling boom is being reported in Ireland by customs teams, with a record 135.2 million cigarettes being seized last year, almost twice the amount seized in 2007. Of these, 56.82 million were counterfeits, the country’s Sunday Independent newspaper has reported.…

BY JAMES FULLER

WHILE the global recession is hitting profits in the oil and gas sector worldwide, the Caribbean’s key producer Trinidad & Tobago remains bullish about the industry bringing it long term financial and economic stability. Indeed, the twin-island country’s minister of energy and energy industries Conrad Enill said this month that both a fifth liquefied natural gas (LNG) train and a new oil refinery are projects which are still firmly on the table for the Caribbean energy powerhouse.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH

THE NEW secretary general of the European Union (EU) financial watchdog, European Court of Auditors, does not have much on the job training to do.

When Eduardo Ruiz García took up his new posting on March 16 he had already served as a Court official for 20 years and now at 48 he has, in effect, dedicated his professional life to the well-being and improvement of the institution.…

By Emma Jackson

The conservative government of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised stimulus for almost every sector, but stimulus for post-secondary education has tended to favour – claims the country’s National Post newspaper commentator Don Martin – "buildings over brains."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, LEAH GERMAIN and MONICA DOBIE

MAYBE the best sign that renewable energies have hit the mainstream is that they now have their very own international organisation: the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Launched in Bonn, Germany, this January, with the support of 76 countries, including its host nation, Spain, Italy, France and Sweden, the roster of signatory nations has since been swollen by India and Belarus.…

By Lorraine Mallinder, in Montréal

As the polar ice cap continues to shrink, the five nations surrounding the Arctic Ocean are hurriedly positioning themselves for what is shaping up to be one of the biggest geopolitical brawls of the coming years.

Beneath the thinning ice lies the tantalising prospect of up to a quarter of the world’s untapped oil and gas reserves and the promise of new shipping routes between East and West. It’s enough to turn the heads of even the most placid nations.…