Search Results for: Climate change

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has suggested varying animal welfare rules for live exports according to the climate to which livestock are sent. It has called for research “to develop realistic ventilation models” and meanwhile for existing regulations to allow more flexibility on misting in summer for cooling, and heating incoming air during winter.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed tightening maximum levels of nitrates and nitrites in meat products because of health concerns. They are used as preservatives, but Brussels wants to make their use “as low as possible…whilst maintaining the microbiological safety” of meat.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH
THERE is no scourge worse than tobacco, Markos Kyprianou the incoming European Union (EU) Commissioner for health and consumer protection declared at the outset of his European Parliament (EP) hearing last week which is to determine his suitability for the job.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
A USA government study has admitted that global warming will cause hurricanes to become even more powerful and destructive that they have shown themselves to be during this year’s turbulent tropical storm season. In the most comprehensive study on hurricanes performed to date, experts from the USA Department of Commerce’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey, have predicted hurricanes could intensify an extra half step on the established five-step scale for their destructive power by the 2080s, drawing more energy from warmer seas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) citizens can expect to suffer from more insect-born diseases as global warming creates climatic conditions favouring the breeding of mosquitoes, fleas, ticks and other pests, a European Environment Agency (EEA) report has warned. It added that heat-related conditions such as heatstroke were also likely to increase, as well as diseases sparked by pollution after flooding generated by climate change inspired increased rainfall.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
IT’S not quite “back to the drawing board chaps” for sugar reform in the European Union (EU) now that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has formally ruled against the present system but some new thinking is surely needed – and quickly.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has suggested varying animal welfare rules for the live export trade according to the climate of a country, to which livestock are sent. Its scientific panel on animal health and welfare has called for detailed practical research on microclimates in lorries “to develop realistic ventilation models for the different animal species in different climatic zones”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE NEW European Commission taking office from November will include for the first time a Commissioner specifically dedicated to fighting European Union (EU) fraud and handling audits. New Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso has appointed an Estonian, Silim Kallas, a former prime minister and finance minister.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
ESTONIA’S prime minister Juhan Parts has refused to increase his government’s planned 20% hike in strong alcohol duty rates, despite pressure from neighbouring Finland for a steeper rise. Visiting Helsinki, Mr Parts heard arguments that next year’s planned tax change would add only a few cents to a bottle of strong grain liquor which retails for about Euro 3 in Estonia, while selling for Euro 9 a bottle in Finland.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
AS recently as 1989 Yugoslavia was the richest and most westernised country in eastern and central Europe and arguably among the more politically stable of them. But then came the collapse. The ethnic fighting of the early 1990s led to breakaways by Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina as independent states in 1992, leaving Serbia and Montenegro as the “Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” under Slobodan Milosevic.…