Search Results for: Environmental Health⊂mit=Search

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

A STUDY of mystery proteins found in the health food fad blue algae has given them a clean bill of health, despite increasing health concerns about this slime, which has become an occasional environmental hazard in fresh water because of eutrophication.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

FOSSIL fuel power stations, road transport and other polluters will come under further pressure to reduce their emissions of particulate matter into the atmosphere, if suggested changes to a proposed European Union (EU) directive on ambient air come into force.…

BY ALAN OSBORN and KEITH NUTHALL

CONSTRUCTION companies who have put up new buildings or extensions in some European Union (EU) countries since January 4 without proper energy performance certificates and standards may have to make additional investments. The European Commission has begun legal proceedings against Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Malta and Sweden for failing to bring in national laws implementing the EU’s 2002 ‘energy performance of buildings’ directive which sets minimum energy standards, affecting construction standards on insulation, ventilation and others.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has released further figures on the spending of the European Union’s (EU) medium-term 2007-13 budget, for instance proposing that the EU’s LIFE+ programme commands Euro 2.09 billion in these years. The priority goal of this spending will be helping fight climate change and the decline in Europe’s biodiversity.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH, in Brussels

WHEN asked about corruption in Belgium by Commercial Crime International, a government official held his nose in the time-honoured gesture. But was he being fair? Some recent high profile cases have brought the nation some lurid publicity.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has accepted British government plans to reform on environmental grounds its private mileage VAT system for business cars driven for personal use. The UK wants to vary the flat rate charged for private mileage under a simplified system in place since 1986, according to the CO2 emitted by various car models.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, in New Delhi

THE INDIAN army has launched an extermination attack on an exploding rat population in India’s northeastern hills, using mass poisoning and traps to avert an environmental disaster. Specialists say the unprecedented swarms of rats in the forests of Mizoram and Manipur states have been caused by the rare flowering of bamboo plants, which grow in thousands of square miles bordering
Myanmar (Burma).…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN research network Eureka has developed a computerised screening process that will help pharmaceutical companies assess thousands of plants for a potentially lucrative source of therapeutic compounds. At present, researchers trawl through plant samples looking for a useful species, but Eureka’s E!…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A GRAND European Union (EU) wide debate on the future or urban transport policy has been announced by EU transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot. Speaking in Paris, the Frenchman promised to issue a green paper this week calling for comments from local and regional authorities about how the EU could directly intervene to improve urban mobility, for instance via research.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

LOCAL and regional authorities in the European Union (EU) should be forced to yield up environmental information for free, the European Parliament’s environment committee has proposed. Its move has come in retabled second reading amendments to a European Commission proposed system for accessing and exchanging environmental information, on the air, water, soil and the countryside.…