Search Results for: Climate change

BY MATTHEW BRACE
*Copper

Copper dropped in production between 2003-04 and the previous year. However, the Mt Lyell Copper Mine in Queenstown has deemed copper priced sufficiently to continue its development of a decline to the next production level. Copper prices made significant gains throughout 2003-4, notably in the second half of the financial year and reached the A$4,000 (UK Pounds 1,600) mark by June, a price not achieved since 1995.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE HOT topic in Gibraltar’s financial circles at present is Spain’s accusation that the Rock’s authorities have not been co-operating in the fight against money laundering. This is not an unfamiliar charge in the perpetual diplomatic row between Madrid and the British territory, but the latest airing of it has gained extra bite because of the enormous scale of the alleged crime, according to local newspaper reports, to run up to Euro 600 million and maybe more.…

Keith Nuthall
THE BRITISH Columbian government may halt imports of American wine to the province in retaliation for US restrictions on softwood lumber according B.C’s forest minister Mike de Jong.

Mr. De Jong said British Columbia and Canada should use recent World Trade Organization rulings that would permit some retaliation by Canada.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH, in Brussels
PROPOSALS for a new European Union (EU) wine regime, which are currently under review, will be unveiled in 12 months’ time according to the recently installed European Commissioner for agriculture, Mrs Mariann Fischer Boel.

In a wide-ranging interview in her Brussels office she admitted that the present arrangements are not working.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
WHAT does a paint industry do when its closest neighbour is a huge industrial giant with massive manufacturing capabilities and large product innovation budgets? Unfortunately, when examining the Canadian paint sector, the answer is not one of David and Goliath but rather a more practical and unromantic approach.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
PRESIDENT George W Bush’s re-election last November has pretty well ruled out any change in the US ban on Cuban cigars for the next four years – if anything, things are likely to get tougher. One of the last things the previous Bush administration did last October was to actually tighten the import ban by barring Americans travelling to Cuba from bringing back up to US$100 dollars worth of Cuban cigars.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission is drafting an action plan to improve transparency in its infamously opaque accounting procedures, with resulting legislative reforms maybe demanding the public unveiling of the recipients of European Union (EU) funds. At a speech in Nottingham before European Foundation for Management Development the EU’s new Commissioner for anti-fraud Siim Kallas noted with disapproval: “At the moment, in most member states, data on end beneficiaries (of Brussels’ agricultural spending) are not publicly available”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITAIN and eight other European countries have signed a memorandum of understanding about constructing a groundbreaking X-ray research laser, so acute it could measure chemical reactions in real time. The UK, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Germany have agreed to negotiate in detail an inter-governmental arrangement for building an approximately three-kilometre-long underground laser generator.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE 2005 Yearbook of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has warned environmental change is spreading diseases beyond their traditional range, while causing pathogens to mutate and become more deadly.

It includes a number of case studies, illustrating one message: “Loss of forests, road and dam building, the spread of cities, the clearing of natural habitats for agriculture, mining and the pollution of coastal waters are promoting conditions under which new and old pathogens can thrive”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Union (EU) research project is investigating 13,000 personal DNA records to discover links between genetics, food components and obesity. A key aim is examining the role carbohydrates and high-protein foods could play in making consumers feel full and so less likely to continue eating.…