Search Results for: Czech Republic

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRITAIN is more enlightened over flexi-time compared with the European Union’s (EU) other large economies, say new figures released by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. The EU agency says only Sweden, Finland and Latvia practice more flexi-time, although Britain does not always perform well regarding the degree of flexibility allowed by employers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) political leaders have agreed medium-term (2007-13) budgets for crucial spending projects for the energy sector: Trans European Networks (TENs) and the EU seventh framework programme (FP7) for research. On TENs, the European Parliament, Commission, and EU Council of Ministers have agreed a Euro 7.2 billion budget, Euro 500 million above previous drafts, although this will have to be split with TENs transport projects.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

FORMER Pentagon deputy Paul Wolfowitz has brought the zeal and energy he applied to invading Iraq to his new job as president of the World Bank. Only this time his target is corruption everywhere, rather than despotism in Iraq, and his weapons are legal and political, not bombs and missiles.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

THE FORTEEN countries of the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) have their AML/CFT work cut out. Under-funded, lacking resources, short of political will and working in a region that leaks money like a sieve…it is a demanding context for the group’s daunting tasks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE MULTILATERAL Investment Guarantee Agency, or MIGA, is the international organisation companies turn to when they want to invest in a jurisdiction where their assets might not be that safe. Oil and gas companies have long used MIGA to cover risks that are too tasty for the private insurance industry, and at December 2005, MIGA had supported 13 oil and gas projects, with guarantees totalling US$707 million, with a standard leverage of five-to-one, so investments covered are actually five times larger.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

RUSSIAN president Vladimir Putin has sought to shore up Russia’s damaged reputation as a reliable energy partner for eastern Europe, by suggesting Hungary take part in the Blue Stream gas pipeline project. In a visit to Budapest, Putin said Russia and Turkey were considering an extension of the Black Sea project "into south Europe, and our partners in that area have shown interests."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE MULTILATERAL Investment Guarantee Agency, or MIGA, is the international organisation companies turn to when they want to invest in a jurisdiction where their assets might not be that safe. Non-ferrous metal miners and processors use MIGA to cover risks that are too tough for the private insurance industry.…

BY MARK ROWE

CZECH shoemakers have warned that customers putting cost before style have left the country’s footwear industry unable to withstand an onslaught from Chinese shoe companies, despite the anti-dumping dutioes recently announced by the European Commission. According to the Czech Shoe and Leather Association, 71 million pairs of shoes were produced in the country in 1991 by an industry that employed 35,000 people: today just five million pairs a year are made by 3,000 workers.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

CENTRAL bankers, drug barons, warlords, corporate bosses and small town crooks in Africa are all washing their money despite attempts by governments and international law enforcement agencies to bring them to book. But financial crime has never been as lucrative as now on the world’s poorest continent.…

BY MARK ROWE

THE ONWARD march of the Chinese economy and its cheap labour appears to be on the verge of claiming another high profile casualty: the Czech leather shoe manufacturing industry. The country that gave the world Bata shoes, and which in the inter-war years carved itself a proud niche as a highly respected manufacturer of shoes, has been overwhelmed by Asian shoe imports sold at prices with which venerable companies are unable to compete.…