Search Results for: France

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SENIOR Brussels diplomats have been told to revise the proposed Euro 5 billion energy infrastructure building plan drafted by the European Commission to help kickstart Europe’s economy from its current slump.

The EU Council of Ministers (general affairs) released a communiqué saying "adjustments of certain aspects will still be necessary."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

FRANCE has been pressured to lift a reservation to the Council of Europe Criminal Law Convention on Corruption which allows it to permit its companies to bribe foreign officials. The council’s anti-corruption group GRECO notes that France "reserves the right not to [criminalise] trading in influence to exert an influence over…a foreign public official or…foreign public assembly."…

BY JULIAN RYALL

THEY may be putting off the new car purchase and the long-haul holiday this year, but Japanese consumers are finding that they cannot do without all their little luxuries.

For the 25th consecutive month, confectionery sales increased in Japan in January.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A DUTCH city initiative will provide the ultimate in environment-friendly drinks distribution – serving 65 drinks outlets by an electric boat. The service will be launched in 2010 in Utrecht, where a conventionally powered ‘beer boat’ already delivers drinks to bars and restaurants via a historic canal network, including beer from four local breweries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A FRENCH environmental charity has concluded Gordon Brown’s globetrotting made the senior European leader with the heaviest carbon footprint in 2008. Terra Eco said that although Brown made fewer journeys than France’s hyperactive President Nicolas Sarkozy, he pumped more carbon into the atmosphere using larger less fuel efficient planes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EVERY recession has a silver lining: inefficient competitors are unmasked and forced out of business; and governments usually spend freely to pump prime an ailing economy. And for major essential industries such as the power sector, economic slumps can be good times.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

THE SULTANATE of Oman has earmarked billions of dollars to build six new airports and expand its existing international airports of Muscat and Salalah.

This Arabian country of 3 million people has the least developed aviation sector of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states and this dramatic increase in capacity forms part of a diversification strategy away from energy – which accounts for an estimated 75% of government revenues.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have been asked to swiftly write into EU law a multi-year stock protection plan for eastern bluefin tuna. It is based on an agreement forged last November at the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) at its annual meeting in Marrakech, Morocco.…

BY MARK ROWE

THE PRINCIPLE of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is of course well established amongst energy suppliers: polluting industries, such as coal, would be able to continue to burn fossil fuels, but carbon dioxide, rather than being expelled into the atmosphere, would be harvested in the energy production cycle and securely locked away.…

BY TONY MALLETT

GIVEN that they work in a country renowned for its knee-deep bureaucracy and fervent industrial action, Belgian truckers seem a surprisingly contented bunch. At least when taken individually.

Despite recent protests about the price of fuel – which resulted in their blockade of the Brussels inner ring road and demonstrations outside the headquarters of both the European Commission and the European Parliament – the pros riding way up high in the cabs of HGVs on Belgian roads seem generally happy with their lot.…