Search Results for: Environmental health

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DISASTERS invariably spark reforms, especially when they are unprecedented. It was so with September 11, which has spun off a range of hitherto unimagined security precautions, and the same kind of safety-first reaction has followed recent oil tanker disasters such as the Prestige tragedy, off Spain.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has adopted a resolution that “deplores” the American refusal to strike a deal at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks on licensing generic drugs in developing countries facing health crises. MEP’s criticised the USA for “favouring a unilateral solution and a narrow list of medicines for which WTO intellectual property rules would be waived.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DRINKS industry giants are meeting with the World Health Organisation (WHO) later this month (February 12) to try and forge a global policy on lessening the health damage caused by alcohol. The meeting follows informal discussions over the past six months; companies attending the meeting manufacture more than half of all alcohol sold.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A WIDE range of industries will have to declare information about their pollution emissions under a new protocol to the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has drawn up plans to finance a range of renewable energy projects in Germany. Up to Euro 200 million would be invested, mainly in wind power plants, and to a lesser extent geothermal, small-scale hydro power, solar energy and biomass based energy projects.…

BY PHILIP FINE

AMERICA is experiencing a rash of mould-related lawsuits. Recent cases have included a US$14 million judgment in Florida against a contractor for alleged toxic mould-related construction defects at a courthouse and a US$65 million lawsuit against a New York community college by one of its former employees for injuries and damages allegedly caused by mould exposure.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PRIVATE financing of Euro 235.9 million will be combined with loans of Euro 112.2 million from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to help rehabilitate and improve the environmental performance of Bulgaria’s privately owned lignite-fired 840 MW power plant Maritza East III.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INNOVATIVE pilot study has been launched in Milan, which could transform the way that air pollution is analysed and measured in Europe, enabling a clearer picture to emerge about the source of emissions. The European Union’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) has joined with the regional Italian environmental protection agency Agenzia Regionale per la Protezione dell’Ambiente Lombardia to measure urban air pollution in the city until the end of February.…

Keith Nuthall
PSYCHOLOGICAL harassment in the workplace, especially by colleagues, is the new growing health-and-safety threat in Europe, both as a source of stress and a cause of productivity losses, a European Union (EU) agency’s report has concluded.

‘Preventing violence and harassment in the workplace’ by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions has found that defence industry workers and government officials are most likely to suffer this kind of victimisation, with 16 per cent reporting these problems.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development is lending US$5.4 million to the Maritime Port Authority of St Petersburg to fund the construction of a maritime navigation safety system in the main Russian sector of the Baltic Sea, where a future surge in tanker traffic is anticipated.…