Search Results for: Canada

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s research Commissioner Philippe Busquin has backed bids by both France and Spain to host the large ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) in, respectively, the cities of Cadarache and Vandellós. His support follows the announcement that Japan has formally proposed the city of Rokkasho as a site, joining Canada in making a formal application.…

BY MONICA DOBIE, in Montreal
THE OWNERS of the Le Clos Jordan vineyard estate in Canada’s Niagara Peninsula have commissioned Canadian architect, Frank Gehry – known primarily for his unorthodox Guggenheim Museum, in Bilbao, Spain – to design plans for a new winery set on a 137 acre site.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, ALAN OSBORN, MONICA DOBIE AND PHILIP FINE

IF there is one striking characteristic about Washington’s Bush Administration, it must be its almost unprecedented ability to infuriate the entire world with its unilateralism, especially its self-serving trade policies.

For years, the US government has actually played Mary Poppins on food production subsidies, claiming that its handouts do not encourage farmers to overproduce when prices are low.…

Keith Nuthall
RUSSIA has been advised, in secret, by the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf about whether it can claim maritime territory in the Pacific and the Arctic, enabling it to control the North Pole.

The UN agency has been studying geological claims lodged by Moscow that wide swathes of the Arctic Ocean are part of Russia’s ‘continental shelf,’ areas of sea that are shallow enough or contain enough sedimentary rocks to be legally defined as national territory under international law.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SWITZERLAND has complained to a key World Trade Organisation committee that its beef imports are being unfairly restricted by the USA because of concerns that they are contaminated with BSE. It has claimed at the WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Committee that the US should not, for example, be insisting on the onsite inspection of Swiss meat plants, because the Office International des Épizooties has classified Switzerland as having a low incidence the disease.…

KEITH NUTHALL
This is based on a feature I wrote for Geographical Magazine a couple of years ago but which I am now focusing solely on Tasmania rather than nationwide.

Tasmanian aquaculture

Matthew Brace, Sydney

Australia is sold to the world as a vast baking continent with quartzite ridges stretching to the horizon like the fossilised carcasses of fallen dinosaurs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FEED the world. Bob Geldof. Don’t they know it’s Christmas time? Food aid: it is supposed to be simple. Poor countries have hungry people. Rich countries have fat people. The developed world sends food to the developing world.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
JIM Buckee, CEO of Canada’s Talisman Energy Inc., has confirmed that his company is currently in talks with India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp. over selling its controversial oil operations in the Sudan. Mr Buckee did not name a price, but analysts estimate the Sudan operations could fetch between US$600 and US$1billion.…

BY MONICA DOBIE, in Montreal
General Motors of Canada has headed reports of sharp increases in national sales for the month of May for new vehicles. GM unveiled a whopping 21 per cent year-on-year increase from May 2001, reporting that it sold more trucks in Canada last month than in any other May in history.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE CANADIAN Booksellers Association (CBA) has called on Canada’s federal government to launch review of Amazon.com Inc’s alleged plans to establish a Canadian online site, which the CBA claims would violate federal foreign investment rules. Amazon.com has not yet confirmed it will establish a Canadian arm, but the bookselling industry predicts a separate Canada site will be introduced on June 25.…