Search Results for: Environmental health

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HEADS of veterinary services from all African countries have agreed that better monitoring of livestock movements, including the identification of animals, is required to stem the flow of disease amongst the continent’s farms. The Conference of the Regional Commission for Africa of the Organisation International des Épizooties agreed the steps would promote trade and local meat supplies.…

BY PHILIP FINE

NUCLEAR waste disposal programmes should be implemented in stages, so that decisions about how to proceed can be based on the latest available information, says a new report from the Board on Radioactive Waste Management of the US National Research Council, which provides advice to the US federal government.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A NEW international treaty significantly extending the public information required of companies over their output of pollutants has been agreed by 30 member countries of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and is expected to be formally adopted in Kiev in May.…

BY PHILIP FINE

A NEW methodology has been developed for paper mills to accurately measure their greenhouse gas emissions. Developed as a standard by the GHG (greenhouse gas) Protocol Initiative, a coalition of environmental and industry groups, the on-line tool can be used on any scale, from determining emissions from a specific mill to the industry as whole.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
The US Food and Drug Administration is creating a taskforce that will develop scientific guidance for establishing standards for qualified health claims in foods.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
IRELAND will ban smoking in all public places including pubs and restaurants from January 2004 onwards. The announcement came as Ireland’s Office of Tobacco Control released a study which found that people who work in smoky environments are up to 30 per cent more likely to develop heart disease and cancer because of passive smoking.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FARMING may be becoming increasingly high-tech, but somehow, it still seems rather odd to couple digging potatoes with launching shiny satellites into orbit around the Earth. But, in fact – as many British farmers well know – space technology has offered useful services to agriculture and will increasingly do so in the future.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IF there was ever a good example to show how the economic interests of humankind generally trump those of the environment, look no further than the Aral Sea, or rather, seas, as it is today. Once a beautiful 66,900 square km inland great lake, it has since the 1960’s shrunk to less than half this size and split in two.…

BY PHILIP FINE

THE US Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has raised the level of fines for all mine safety and health violations by just over 10 per cent. A ‘single penalty’ assessment for what is termed as a ‘non-serious violation’ and corrected promptly will rise from US$55 to US$60 (GBPounds 31-37).…

BY EDWARD PETERS
FOR a snapshot of the current state of the Chinese tobacco industry, casual observers need go no further than the massive adverts blanketing some of the main highways in Shanghai, which is generally considered to be the most go-ahead city in the People’s Republic (PRC).…