Search Results for: Environmental health

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is threatening legal action against the British government, claiming that it has failed to write the updated EU drinking water directive into UK national legislation. If Whitehall does not persuade the Commission within two months that it has satisfactory plans to implement its rules, it could face a case at the European Court of Justice.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTENATIONAL organisation committed to developing a workable fusion reactor has formally decided to move ahead with the next stage of its plan to develop the first fusion device to produce thermal energy at the level of a commercial power station.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation has announced an agreement with the world’s six largest medical journal publishers, where they will allow medical schools and research institutions to access their scientific information for free or at reduced rates.

Blackwell, Elsevier Science, the Harcourt Worldwide STM Group, Wolters Kluwer International Health & Science, Springer Verlag and John Wiley have agreed to grant almost 1,000 of these institutions preferential Internet access to their journals for at least three years from January 2002.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission said today (Wednesday) it was taking France to the European Court of Justice over restrictions preventing alcoholic drinks producers from participating in the cross-border provision of television broadcasting services, sports sponsorship and advertising services.

Brussels said that the French Loi Evin “disproportionately restricts the cross-border media sales services by sports events organisers in other Member States” and restricted alcoholic drink producers from buying advertising and sponsorship services from sports events organised in other EU countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union has been pressing its trading partners to loosen the emergency import restrictions that they imposed on EU meat products at the height of the foot and mouth crisis, because of the clear evidence that the outbreak is under control.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission’s deadline of evaluating by July 2003 the safety of the 800-plus active substances used in EU pesticides will be missed, with Brussels asking ministers and MEPs to extend the completion date to 2008.

Health and consumer affairs Commissioner David Byrne has admitted that when the EU agreed Directive 91/414 on the authorisation, use and control of plant protection products – insecticides, fungicides, herbicides etc.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has approved a new EU-wide temporary protection system to cope with an influx of refugees, such as that created by the conflicts in former Yugoslavia.

Ministers can now order that the European Refugee Fund assists Member States prepared to accept displaced persons; they would be granted certain rights to residence and work permits, appropriate information, accommodation, social assistance, health care, and education.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is developing a set of common statistical indicators that will enable the EU and national governments to accurately assess where there are particular problems of poverty and social exclusion within the European Union. A statement from the Commission said that although progress was being made on this work, further development is “urgent” in two key areas: the development of non-monetary indicators and also improved measurement tools in relation to health, housing and education.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed that strict dioxin contamination limits are introduced from January 2002, covering foodstuffs including fish and fish feed.

Products with dioxin contaminants exceeding these levels would be considered “unsuitable for consumption.”

The following maximum levels for fish dioxins have been tabled:

*Fish oil: 6 nanogram/kg;

*Fish meal: 1.25 nanogram/kg;

*Fish feed: 2.25 nanogram/kg;

*Fish meat (farmed and wild): 4 nanogram/kg.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A MAJOR European Union research study has concluded that the ‘true’ price of using coal and oil to generate electricity is double that usually assumed by standard accounting systems, when the costs of cleaning up the resulting pollution and dealing with the resulting health problems are taken into account.…