Search Results for: Dutch caribbean

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SECURING agreement on important European Union (EU) legislation creating a continent-wide tolling system for all lorries exceeding 3.5 tonnes will be the top transport priority of the EU’s new Luxembourg presidency. The grand duchy’s transport minister Lucien Lux has already discussed the railway aspects of the proposed widened Eurovignette regime with the EU railway federation the CER and has publicly promised to push for agreement.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

DECEMBER 2005’s semi-successful World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Hong Kong means that the sacrifice forced upon the European Union’s (EU) well protected sugar sector the month before will – largely – be worth the pain. Unlike the previous big WTO meeting, in Cancun, Mexico, trade ministers did not leave in rancour having achieved little.…

BY MONICA DOBIE and KEITH NUTHALL, in Sint Maarten and Anguilla

DOLPHINARIUMS are an increasingly sought after once in a lifetime experience but these marine amusement parks remain controversial. Is it about big business exploiting these highly intelligent creatures for fat profits or do they provide people with an intimate experience that allows them to better understand them?…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A SUMMIT meeting of 100 Caribbean religious leaders has agreed that their organisations and laity will cooperate with and actively support governmental, non-governmental and other agencies fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS, while helping care for people infected with the disease.…

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.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

NON-DIOXIN LIKE PCB CONTAMINATION WARNING – EFSA

THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has called on the food industry to further minimise non-dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (NDL-PCBs) in food, because of health concerns about excess contamination. * http://www.efsa.eu.int/science/contam/contam_opinions/1229/contam_op_ej284_ndl-pcb_en1.pdf

ECJ SMOKED FLAVOURINGS CRISPS – BRITAIN APPEAL

A EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has rejected a British government attempt to strike down a EU regulation controlling smoke flavourings in foods.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE LATEST World Health Organisation (WHO) figures on HIV/AIDS indicate some heavily afflicted countries are seeing infection rates fall. Kenya and Zimbabwe are among those with declining infections: amongst all adults in Kenya, from 10% in the late 1990s to 7% in 2003; and among pregnant women in Zimbabwe falling, from 26% in 2003 to 21% in 2004.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) advocate general Francis Jacobs has advised that where consumers buy excised goods, including tobacco and alcohol, in a foreign European Union (EU) country, and arrange for them to be transported to their home EU state, only the excise duty originally paid is due.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Union’s outgoing Dutch presidency has predicted that a quick agreement could be achieved with the European Parliament this Spring over the proposed directive on improving statutory audit controls. Its confidence was based on a common approach agreed before Christmas by EU finance ministers that will be presented to MEPs, in the hope that the legislation can be agreed in one reading, instead of the usual two.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE CURRENT Dutch presidency of the EU is surveying food-related EU research to inform at meeting of senior officials next February 2005, where governments will discuss boosting cooperation within the EU’s Standing Committee for Agricultural Research.…