Search Results for: Dutch caribbean

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE OPERATION of the high flux research reactor operated by the European Union’s (EU) Joint Research Centre, in Petten, the Netherlands, has been extended for one more year by the EU Council of Ministers. The reactor will now continue as a research tool until December 2008, with a Euro 8.5 million budget donated by the Dutch and French governments.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

Brussels

The operation of the high flux research reactor operated by the European Union’s (EU) Joint Research Centre, in Petten, the Netherlands, has been extended for one more year by the EU Council of Ministers. The reactor will now continue as a research tool until December 2008, with a Euro 8.5 million budget donated by the Dutch and French governments.…

BY MARK ROWE

WHICHEVER way you look, the oil and gas sector is investing in biofuels. The larger energy companies – driven by an eye for a new and potentially lucrative market as well as shareholder concern and governmental and international political pressure – are investigating both first and second generation biofuels.…

BY CHRIS JONES, in Paris

A FEW hours of training and a handful of simple-to-follow driving rules can help significantly reduce CO2 emissions by buses, lorries and other public sector vehicles, and help local authorities do their bit – and be seen doing it – to tackle global warming.…

BY SUZANNE KOELEGA, in Sint Maarten, Netherlands Antilles, JAMES FULLER, in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, and KEITH NUTHALL

A MAJOR shake up is looming in the political organisation of the Caribbean, with the impending dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles federation, and the creation of separate political units for its composite islands Curaçao, Bonaire, Sint Maarten, Saba and Sint Eustatius (Statia).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has authorised the Netherlands to derogate from standard VAT law for the ready-to-wear clothing industry by shifting the obligation to pay sales tax from clothing firm sub-contractors to their contractors. The aim of this temporary reform – which would last until December 2009 – is, said council minutes: "Preventing fraud in a sector in which collecting VAT is rendered awkward by the difficulty of identifying and supervising the activities of subcontractors."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE USA and the European Union (EU) have opened to the public a disputes panel at the World Trade Organisation considering their 12-year diplomatic battle over the banana trade. Washington – backed by Latin American producers – still claims the EU unfairly favours Caribbean and African banana producers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Commission official has told just-food.com that while the European Union (EU) may have lost the latest World Trade Organisation (WTO) dispute over market access for banana exports, this ruling should soon become irrelevant.

The senor official at the Commission’s trade directorate general claimed the WTO panel said the ruling will be superseded by liberalisation reforms being implemented for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) banana exporters.…

BY MARK ROWE and PAUL COCHRANE

IT is something of an understatement to describe Iran as a peripheral player on the international paint scene. The country’s share of the world market in paints and varnishes in 2007 is, according to research analysts Gobi International, just 0.5%.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH, in Brussels

CONSUMER reaction is critical to the acceptability of the new generation of packaging which uses deliberate interactions between the packaging and food, according to an expert from Montpellier University, France, in a paper delivered to last week’s European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) conference held in Brussels to honour that organisation’s first five years.…