Search Results for: Climate change

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A SUMMIT meeting of 100 Caribbean religious leaders has agreed that their organisations and laity will cooperate with and actively support governmental, non-governmental and other agencies fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS, while helping care for people infected with the disease.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

INTERNATIONAL accountancy firms will be closely monitoring next week’s World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Hong Kong for signs that the WTO’s long-running Doha Development Round talks are about to crack open national accounting and auditing markets. Progress in refreshing the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) has been sluggish since talks began in 2000, one year ahead of the general round, with few trade-offs being offered in bilateral exchanges.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS in Johannesburg

DROUGHT-HIT and AIDS-ravaged southern Africa is faced with a looming humanitarian crisis with almost 12 million people in need of food aid. But genetically modified (GM) crops remain off the menu for most African governments who remain reluctant to allow their farmers to do business with GM giants Monsanto and Syngenta.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has further underlined developing European Union (EU) case law that says periods spent resting, but on-call within hospitals and clinics, should be considered working time under relevant EU legislation. However, judges have weakened claims by nurses and others that EU law guarantees them payment for such activities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Trade Organisation’s (WTO) general council has permanently amended the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement to make permanent a 2003 waiver helping poor countries obtain generic medicines during health emergencies. The TRIPS amendment enables any WTO member country to export generic pharmaceuticals made under a compulsory licence to assist countries lacking their own manufacturing capacity and whose nurses and doctors would otherwise be unable to deal with a serious disease problem.…

BY MONICA DOBIE and KEITH NUTHALL

TIME was when Canadians focused a significant proportion of their habitual condescension towards their American neighbours through beer. US brands were dismissed as weak in alcohol, tasteless and generic. But today, even though the big US beer labels taste the same as they ever did – much to the relief of many consumers around the world, of course – Canadian beer tastes are changing, especially among the young.…

BY TAMARA VANTROYEN in Hong Kong

HONG Kong’s higher education system’s gradual move away from the British system of education to one that is more aligned with the US and mainland China models, is leading to a proliferation of associate degrees (ADs) springing up in Hong Kong.…

BY HEIDE NEWSON, in Brussels

THE EUROPEAN Commission faced a rumble of discontent this week in Brussels from Europe’s social scientists over their share of funding from the proposed seventh framework research programme (FP7) for 2007-13. Participants warned their important role in achieving the Lisbon Process goal of transforming Europe into the world’s most dynamic, knowledge-based economy was at risk of being overlooked.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AUTO manufacturing firms will be closely monitoring next week’s World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Hong Kong for signs that the WTO’s long-running Doha Development Round talks are about to crack open national automobile markets. Key auto industry countries – the US, the European Union, Canada, Japan, South Korea, India and Brazil – have been making steady progress this year in identifying non-tariff barriers to trade they would like to remove, such as burdensome customs procedures, technical engineering rules and licences.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation’s (WTO) general council has permanently amended the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement to make permanent the 2003 waiver helping poor countries obtain generic medicines during health emergencies. The TRIPS amendment enables any WTO member country to export generic pharmaceuticals made under a compulsory licence to assist countries lacking their own manufacturing capacity.…