Search Results for: Climate change

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AN INTERNATIONAL Standard for Determining Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Cities has been launched at a UN World Urban Forum. It calculates emissions per head, allowing comparative analysis. Emissions vary widely depending on energy sources, climate, transportation, waste systems and urban density.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EXECUTIVE secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Yvo de Boer has announced that he will be quitting his job in July. He has led the UNFCCC Secretariat since 2006, managing the complex efforts to replace the Kyoto Protocol.…

BY JULIAN RYALL, FRANCES WANG, AHMAD PATHONI, WILLIAM BARNES, KARRYN MILLER and KEITH NUTHALL

THE PEOPLE of Okinawa are famous – even in ageing Japan – for their longevity. The women of this sub-tropical chain of islands have the longest life expectancy in the world, at nearly 89 years, they have the lowest mortality rate from chronic diseases linked to ageing and the highest ration of centenarians in the world – nearly six times the rate in other industrialised nations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WHITE House has started to become involved in US Congressional debates to pass a cap-and-trade bill, which is critical for transforming the informal Copenhagen climate change deal into formal agreement. President Barack Obama has hosted a meeting with Democrat and Republican senators, plus cabinet officials, to discuss a potential compromise law.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE RETAIL Motor Industry Federation (RMI) has warned a strengthening of European Union (EU) minimum roadworthiness test standards would widen tests carried out under the UK’s MOT, increasing test costs. In a comprehensive upgrade, the EU Council of Ministers agreed "modern electronic systems be included in the list of items to be tested."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A POTENTIALLY influential groundbreaking piece of research has demonstrated that consumers drink significantly fewer soft drinks when prices are increased. Published in the USA’s prestigious Archives of Internal Medicine, a comprehensive 20 year study on 5,115 people assessed the impact of price swings on soft drinks and pizza consumption.…

BY MARK ROWE

RUSSIA’S near abroad appears to offer an A-Z of both money laundering activities – from low level corruption to more sinister opium-based profits – and of the wide spectrum of governmental attitudes towards tackling the problem.

"While Russian and Ukrainian gangs have a presence in a lot of the activity in the region, most money laundering is still done by indigenes," said Mark Galeotti, of the Centre for Global Affairs at New York University (NOTE – SPELLING IS CORRECT).…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, KARRYN MILLER and KEITH NUTHALL

IRAN may be a democratic theocracy, but it certainly does not take the moral high ground when it comes to tobacco smuggling. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has in the past identified Iran as being one of only two countries in the world where more than half the cigarette market share comprises contraband.…

BY CLEMENCE MANYUKWE

AFTER being allocated a piece of land in the year 2000 as part of the country’s controversial and often violent land reform, it has taken nearly a decade for small scale tobacco farmer Tendai Dambanjera to commercially justify the claim of what he says is his ancestral land.…

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.…