Search Results for: Environmental Health⊂mit=Search

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations’ International Seabed Authority has delayed agreement of new regulations governing how metal ore mining companies would explore and exploit deep seawaters for hauls such as polymetallic sulphide nodules and cobalt-rich crusts. These mineral resources are rich in copper, iron, zinc, silver, gold and cobalt; sulphides are found around volcanic areas and crusts on oceanic ridges.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has released a detailed plan to cut the annual number of premature deaths from air pollution-related diseases by almost 40% from the year 2000, while substantially reducing the European forests and ecosystems threatened by filthy air.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has published a new standard for food safety management systems, designed to ensure there are no weak environmental health links in food supply chains. ISO 22000 specifies requirements for food safety management for sourcing, manufacturing, canning, boxing, bagging, bottling, delivering and selling food.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A LAW passed in 2003, that told European Union (EU) member states to criminalise a wide range of environmental misdemeanours and ensure they are effectively punished, has been struck down by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). It has ruled that it broke the Treaty of European Union by being agreed without a proposal from the European Commission and approval by the European Parliament.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has approved plans to lend Euro 40 million to Latvia utility Latvenergo to help it build a 400 mW combined heat and power (CHP) plant, in the capital Riga. Hoping to diversify the country’s hydro-power dominated energy mix, the EIB wants to help Latvenergo replace an existing CHP plant with a modern gas-fired combined cycle unit, heat recovery steam generator and steam turbine.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has released details of proposed nuclear industry measures it will abandon to simplify the European Union’s (EU) political workload. Brussels is dropping a 2003 proposal to conclude an ‘agreement on a multilateral nuclear environmental programme in Russia’ and a related ‘protocol on claims, legal proceedings and indemnification’.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
EXPOSURE to pesticides kills farmers so why are we still using them?

In Britain, farmers, most of them without knowing and unaware that their symptoms are linked to insecticide use, have poisoned their bodies by repeatedly being exposed to these dangerous chemicals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is consulting widely on applications by European Union (EU) industrialists to continue using lead, mercury, cadmium and hexavalent chromium for certain processes after a ban on their exploitation in electronics is imposed next July. This has been ordered by the EU directive 2002/95/EC on hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment, which allows for some exemptions where there are no effective technical alternatives.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has released details of environmental law proposals it will abandon under a drive to simplify European Union (EU) legislation. Dropped laws awaiting agreement from EU ministers and the European Parliament include a year 2000 proposed regulation organising official controls of meat and dairy products; a 1997 proposed directive imposing technical changes on common rules for food labelling; plus tabled ratifications of both a water and health protocol to the 1992 UN convention on transboundary watercourses and international lakes; and a protocol on civil liability and compensation for industrial accidents on transboundary watercourses.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE COMPLAINTS watchdog of the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) has dismissed claims that a Guatemala gold mine receiving its support poses significant environmental health risks to neighbouring communities. The IFC’s independent Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO) has concluded that complainants from the city of Sipacapa will not face “a significant risk from any contamination to waterways” and that they “will not experience increased competition for water”.…