Search Results for: Canada

BY DAVID HAWORTH, in Brussels

CONFECTIONARY consumers will need to note a clear perceived benefit from nanotechnology when applied to their products if there is not to be a re-run of debate similar to that surrounding the introduction of GMOs: that was the message from scientists and other food experts speaking at an EU seminar last week entitled "From Safe Food to Healthy Diets."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MOLDOVAN wine and spirits producers are celebrating a partial lifting of an 18 month ban on their products entering Russia, but the embargo has forced their industry upmarket to survive in alternative western markets. So, once the 15 Moldovan drinks manufacturers given permission to sell into Russia start selling product, prices are expected to be 30% more expensive, according to the US-funded Ukraine Agricultural Marketing Project.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE VAST profits generated by smuggling counterfeit cigarettes have been highlighted in a new OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development) report. It concludes that container with 8.5 million sticks smuggled into the US would yield US$ 1-1.5 million in revenue, while costing the illicit manufacturer just US$ 120,000-130,000 to make, plus 25%-30% shipping costs, if made in China.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CHINA has been baldly accused of hosting much of the world’s booming counterfeit auto parts production. A detailed report by the planet’s largest think tank – the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – said: "China has been repeatedly identified as the principal source of counterfeit activity in the automotive sector, involving both trademark and design infringements.…

BY LUCY JONES, in Dallas, Texas, ALAN OSBORN, in London, and PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut.

AS American gas prices once again edge closer to the US$3 a gallon mark – the point at which an all-pervading quiet panic besets the US retail market – staff at the country’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s hotline know busy times are ahead.…

BY MARK ROWE

LORRIES are increasingly being stolen for their value as scrap and recycled materials, UK authorities have warned the road haulage industry. The rise in thefts of lorries has been blamed partly on the high prices now paid for scrap metal on the international markets – driven in part by China’s insatiable demand for metal – and on thieves who have realized that almost any part of a lorry, from wheel hubs to side panels, axles, catalytic converters, a plastic chair or the gold in the wiring looms has a recyclable value.…

BY ALAN OSBORN and MONICA DOBIE, in Ottawa

AGAINST the background of a stable or even declining birth-rate, north American baby food companies are turning to organic and other premium foods to maintain and, where possible, to increase market share. The US Food Institute reports that the overall USA baby food and drink market is predicted to remain virtually unchanged between now and 2011 when sales will reach only US$3.6 billion – just US$100 million higher than this year.…

BY ANDREW SALMON, in Seoul

THE WORDS ‘nuclear’ and ‘Korea’ automatically conjure up images of Kim Jong-il’s underground atomic weapons programs, but south of the heavily militarised border, it is South Korea that has quietly built up one of the world’s most competitive nuclear industries.…

BY MONICA DOBIE, in Ottawa

CANADA’S Indigo Books & Music is receiving criticism for taking a role in a controversial Ontario election campaign promise that would see the dominant bookseller supplying books to the province’s school libraries.

Ahead of his reelection this month, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty promised to spend CDN$80-million for books for Ontario school libraries over the next four years, naming Indigo as the projected sole supplier, "at cost".…

BY ALAN OSBORN

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) legal profession suffered a significant reversal in June this year when the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that reporting obligations imposed on lawyers participating in financial transactions with no link to judicial proceedings did not breach the right to a fair trial.…