Search Results for: Environmental health

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TRAVEL insurance companies have been saved from additional exposure to risk within the European Union (EU) by a European Court of Justice ruling underlining the right of all EU citizens to receive free medical care in whatever Member State they happen to be living or visiting.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
EUROPEAN insurance companies have raised practical objections to a proposed amendment to an EU directive on environmental liability that would make insurance compulsory five years after the directive comes into force. The directive, proposed a year ago, would seek to reduce environmental pollution under three headings – bio-diversity, water, and damage causing serious potential or actual harm to public health via soil or sub-soil contamination.…

BY PHILIP FINE

THE UNITED States is offering to eliminate tariffs on imported mining equipment and unspecified "energy products" as part of their initial offer to create the proposed 34-country Free Trade Area of the Americas. Those sectors join a number of other goods, including steel, and environmental and wood products, for which Washington wants to offer duty free access to its markets under a reciprocal agreement, as well as improving market access for a range of services, including "energy services."…

BY MARK ROWE and ALAN OSBORN, in London, PHILIP FINE and MONICA DOBIE, in Montreal, and RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg

RATCHETING up security has been a prime concern of the nuclear industry since the September 11 attacks, with all countries possessing commercial reactors addressing the issue to some extent.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) has agreed to admit officials from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and representatives from secretariats for other multilateral environmental agreements as observers to its ongoing Doha Development Round negotiations. The move has been welcomed by the European Commission, which wants these representatives to point out when the free trade talks are in danger of creating an agreement that may undermine or conflict with existing international environmental agreements.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Environment Agency has released a comprehensive report promoting good practice within Europe’s waste industry, in a bid to ease governments’ reliance on landfilling, which it considers too dominant. Case Studies on Waste Minimisation Practices in Europe focuses on 10 initiatives undertaken in Europe during the 1990’s to promote and encourage waste minimisation.…

BY MICHAEL FOX
TANKS and vessels are used to store a huge range of hazardous liquids. But if they leak either from a failure of the storage system or during handling, many can pose a major threat to the environment and to groundwater.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has banned all imports of bovine fresh meat into the EU from Paraguay, because of alleged serious problems regarding the south Americans’ control and supervision of Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks in their country.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Union (EU) funded project has been launched, which will support the restructuring of Macedonia’s steel sector. This Euro 500,000 technical assistance project is being managed by the EU’s European Agency for Reconstruction, which is helping to rebuild the war-damaged economy of the southern Balkans.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE MOST important driver of reform in the institutions of the European Union today is the impending enlargement of the EU eastwards, to take in (Greek) Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.…