Search Results for: Dominican Republic

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has accused nine European Union (EU) governments of dragging their feet over promoting biofuels in their countries. It has sent critical formal notices to Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland and Slovenia accusing them of failing to submit national reports framing 2005 targets for biofuel consumption, as required under the Biofuels Directive.…

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
THE HONDURAS government is seeking to improve its victory over the Dominican Republic in its disputes case at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), where a panel ruled last December that the Caribbean island state had unfairly restricted the import of Honduran cigarettes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation (WHO) has reported the deaths of 61 diamond miners in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from pneumonic plague, which ravaged Middle Ages Europe as ‘the Black Death’. Today 98.7% of the three types of plague cases are found in Africa: worldwide, in 2003, nine countries reported 2,118 cases and 182 deaths, also in the ex-USSR, the Americas and Asia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation (WHO) has reported an outbreak of pneumonic plague at a “very unsanitary (diamond) mine” in Zobia, Ituri district, in the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Since late December, said the WHO, 61 diamond miners had died from the disease, which infects humans from the air they breathe.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE NETHERLANDS government has shown how rich countries can fulfil their Kyoto Protocol commitments by promoting the overseas development of efficient green energy production, claimed the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The Dutch are funding a Euro 5 million conversion of a Bulgarian paper mill from generating energy via oil and gas to biomass via the EBRD-managed Euro 32 million Netherlands Emissions Reduction Co-operation Fund.…

Keith Nuthall
BRITISH taxation inched up from 2002 to 2003, but according to the latest comparative European Union (EU)-wide figures, the UK still has one of the lowest European tax burdens. As a proportion of GDP, Britain’s total taxes were 37.1% in 2003, compared with 37% in 2002, up from 36.7% in 1995, before the accession to power of the Labour government.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Health Organisation (WHO) is warning that around 100 million people fall into poverty every year because of medical care payments they cannot afford. It adds that an additional 150 million people spend nearly half their incomes on medical expenses.…

IRELAND’S Celtic Tiger economy may have lost a little of its bounce recently, with double-digit annual growth figures no longer predicted. However, the beast is still in fine fettle, as a recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) observer report notes: "The economy has bounced back.…

KEITH NUTHALL
On the basis of existing policies and measures alone, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Slovak Republic, Sweden and the United Kingdom should reach their individual targets. The Netherlands and Luxembourg will achieve their targets with the help of credits from the project-based mechanisms.…