Search Results for: Environmental Health⊂mit=Search

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
PRESSURE from consumers and regulators have forced automotive manufacturers to re-examine the vehicle construction process from top to bottom in recent years. Increasing fuel prices coupled with drivers’ demands for improved performance has meant that the use of lighter materials, such as aluminium and composites which are bonded using adhesives, has become far more widespread, and could be set to become even more commonplace in volume production.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GREECE and Cyprus are taking over the key European Commission jobs in the environmental health world, in the new team unveiled by incoming Brussels president José Durão Barroso. Taking over from Sweden’s Margot Wallström as environment commissioner will be Greek Stavros Dimas, who has served as stand in employment commissioner since his compatriot Anna Diamontopoulou returned to national politics in March.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ENERGY portfolio at the European Commission is being downgraded this November with the departure of Spain’s Loyola de Palacio, a vice-president as well as an energy commissioner. Hungary’s foreign minister László Kovacs – who will be a standard commissioner without the transport portfolio also commanded by De Palacio – is replacing her.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is planning to inject up to US$8 million into the Mauritius-based African Lion II equity investment fund to boost early-stage African mining exploration and development projects. The EIB wants to promote the “development of the small-medium scale mining sector in Africa”, adding African Lion schemes would comply with best environmental practice.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has committed itself to supporting in the medium-term the construction of independent power producers in Slovakia, as part of the country’s ongoing electricity sector liberalisation. In a new strategy for the new European Union (EU) member country, the EBRD said it would “work with developers of independent plants”, complimenting the privatisation of electricity utility Slovenske Elektrarne.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ITALIAN government is being taken to the European Court of Justice for allowing 5,000 illegal or uncontrolled landfills to operate, breaking EU law. The European Commission will cite national forest police allegations that 700 uncontrolled dumps may contain hazardous waste.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD’S food standards body, the Codex Alimentarius, has approved an international code of practice on ‘good animal feeding’, establishing a global feed safety system for livestock “in order to minimise risks to the health of consumers.” It advises on reducing environmental health problems associated with particular feeds, (such as antibiotics).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE is flirting with potentially huge daily recurring fines from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) by failing to implement three ECJ rulings, one on some of the European Union’s (EU) oldest water legislation. Paris, claims the European Commission, has failed to adopt pollution reduction programmes required by the 1976 directive on discharges of dangerous substances to water, such as heavy metals, pesticides and chemicals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has released a technical standard advising on detecting illicit movements of radioactive materials at frontiers and industry control points. ISO said it wanted to provide a common technical base for monitoring, helping communication between regulatory authorities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GROUND-LEVEL checks on the thickness of polar ice caps are being staged by the European Space Agency (ESA) to assess environmental monitoring data which will be culled by its oncoming Cryosat satellite mission. ESA has sent scientists to ice sheets in the north of Canada, Greenland and Norway.…