Search Results for: Climate change

By Paul Cochrane, in Beirut

For business journalists, writing about the Gulf from 2004 to 2008 was often a repetitive process. Regardless of the sector being covered, the opening paragraph would invariably have a growth figure in the double digits, and the projection for the next year would also be very healthy. The global financial crisis in the autumn of 2008 dimmed the region's business fortunes, flipping that opening paragraph to negative double-digit growth or, for some sectors, growth in the low single-digits.

This change was welcomed by many business journalists, if only to spice up their writing, but of course not by the business community. The reasons behind strong growth can be easily explained, but a downturn and a serious contraction in revenues requires a different explanation, and it was time for journalists to start asking hard questions – at least it should have been time to play hardball.…

Anil Giri, in Kathmandu

Ahead of the UN Conference on climate change, in Copenhagen, the Nepalese
government has held a cabinet meeting at the foot of Mount Everest to bring
attention to the impact of climate change on the Himalayas.

The meeting comes after the government of the Maldives hosted a similarly
unusual cabinet meeting (in that case underwater in the Indian Ocean), where
they urged the international community to cut their carbon dioxide
emissions. The Maldives have long been at risk from global warming-linked
sea level rises, which threaten to drown the small islands.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A SHIFT in European Union (EU) energy policy should become apparent from February 1, when Germany’s Günther Oettinger should become EU energy Commissioner. Replacing Latvia’s Andris Piebalgs for the next five years, the appointment of a German to this increasingly powerful position has been widely touted as shifting EU energy relations towards closer links with Russia.…

BY LEE ADENDORFF, ERIC LYMAN and KEITH NUTHALL

INTRODUCTION

THE ITALIAN wine industry hit rock bottom a generation ago, when thousands of bottles of Italian wine were found laced with deadly levels of methanol, a key ingredient in antifreeze that had been used to raise the alcohol content of the wine.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE PLANNED shape of a new European Commission for the next five years has been unveiled, and it includes recreating a new single directorate general (DG) for energy. Since 2000, the Commission has operated a joint directorate general for energy and transport, but with the growing importance of the energy brief to the European Union (EU), energy policy will receive a new separate directorate general.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A YEAR of struggle would be the best way to sum up 2009 as far as the global clothing and textile industry is concerned. The depth and severity of the worldwide recession left many clothing and textile companies reeling, even impacting upon China, which had previously been dominating global markets.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

PAUL McCartney has taken his campaign for ‘meat-free Mondays’ to a European Parliament hearing, although he received political brickbats for his trouble.

The ex-Beatle, a well-known vegetarian, was speaking at a Brussels hearing on global warming and food policy, where he declared: "The parliament and national governments need to encourage, inform, help and guide people about the benefits of reducing their meat consumption."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE CHINESE and Indian governments have been calling for international climate change agreements to include ‘compulsory licensing’ for inventions that reduce carbon emissions. This would weaken intellectual property rights for developers, enabling such technology to be copied cheaply.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CONSUMERS suing pharmaceutical companies can change the formal identity of a defendant in court proceedings after a standard 10-year limit for making such claims, if their old target is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the new. This was the conclusion of a European Court of Justice (ECJ) case involving France’s Aventis Pasteur SA – sued by a British patient over alleged brain damage from a vaccine.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

AS Indonesia’s economy continues to grow so too does demand for paint and coatings in the region. In 2008, the archipelago recorded a 6.1% increase in gross domestic product (GDP), moving from a GDP per capita of US$3,700 in 2007 to US$3,900 the following year (using purchasing power parity adjustments).…