Search Results for: Environmental Health⊂mit=Search

BY KEITH NUTHALL

FOUR international organisations have signed an agreement to work together in significantly reducing the number of animals used in biomedical and other experiments. The Japanese Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods, the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM), the US National Toxicology Program and Canada’s Environmental Health Science and Research Bureau have initialed a memorandum of cooperation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

REFORMS have been approved by the European Parliament to a revised European Union (EU)-wide ecolabel system, making it tougher for many non-food product packagers to secure regarding the use of environmentally damaging chemicals. An informal agreement with EU ministers means that parliament’s decision will probably become law soon.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A SHOT in the arm has been provided for the European Union’s (EU) Nabucco pipeline project, with Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan signing an agreement with the EU backing the project. In return for promising to work towards bringing Caspian gas to western European markets by 2014, the EU has made pledges on ensuring there is demand for gas and oil reaching Europe through ‘southern corridor’ routes bypassing Russia and Ukraine.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WHEN critics of Britain’s successful war to retake the Falklands Islands from an invading Argentina claimed the military action was about oil and gas reserves, few paid them much heed. After all, Buenos Aires had committed an act of naked aggression against a small remote community that wanted to remain British.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

OIL tankers sailing past the often unstable shores of west Africa will be safer in future, following the commissioning of a fully-equipped regional Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Monrovia, Liberia, coordinated by the International Maritime Organisation. The centre will help ships in distress off the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.…

BY MARK ROWE, in London; KARRYN CARTELLE, in TOKYO; RUSSELL BERMAN, in Washington DC; and MONICA DOBIE, in Ottawa

INNOVATION in drinks packaging is more intense today than it has been for decades, with cutting edge innovation in intelligent materials, microchip integration and nanomaterials allowing designers to create boxes, bottles, cans and sacks that they could not dream of before.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AN INTERNATIONAL convention imposing environmental health rules on tanker and other ship recycling was expected to be approved by a diplomatic conference in Hong Kong May 11-15. This International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships was drafted by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to control this notoriously dangerous industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL and EMMA JACKSON

IF the competition to build gas pipeline networks from Russia, the Caucasus and central Asia to central and western Europe were a horserace, commentators would say it was still too close to call.

For although politicians and diplomats in Brussels, Moscow and other European capitals would never admit it publicly, these multi-million investment projects are contests of power and influence.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has drawn back from a robust collective response to the swine flu crisis, despite the disease spreading around Europe. Meeting on Thursday, the EU Council of Ministers for health rejected a French proposal for an EU-wide travel ban to Mexico, the source of the outbreak.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Union (EU) funded study confirmed the major differences between industry, governments and environmentalists over the development of nanotechnology, whose use in coatings and paint is being enthusiastically researched. This ‘mapping study on regulation and governance of nanotechnologies’ involving Britain’s Institute of nanotechnology, the Innovation Society, Switzerland, and others.…