Search Results for: Germany

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WINDSHIELDS are not such something to look through, say European scientists: they also act as loud speakers, attracting and magnifying noise created by an auto, reflecting the racket back at drivers and passengers alike. This fact has made researchers in the European Union (EU)-funded InMAR (‘Intelligent Materials for Active Noise Reduction’) project consider how to change the materials making windshields, so that they absorb noise rather than amplify it.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is threatening further legal action against the British government in a long-running case involving Marks & Spencer trying to reduce its tax bill because of losses incurred in continental Europe. M&S retreated from France, Belgium and Germany in 2001, following losses made by its subsidiaries in these countries, and sought reductions to its main UK tax bill as a result.…

BY E BLAKE BERRY

IT is common knowledge that the flood of Polish workers moving to Britain for well-paid work has started turning, as Poles are lured home by a stronger domestic currency and family ties – many of these returnees are transport workers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

GERMANY’S nuclear power operators are proposing their government abandons its 15-year phase out of plants and instead keep them operating for at least 25 years. RWE, E.ON and Vattenfall say the additional profits they would generate could be ploughed back into clean energy research or subsidise German domestic energy bills.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

FEW things say more about the growing enthusiasm for nuclear power than the rush of young students eager to make a career in the industry. It is happening mainly in America but other countries are now beginning to see the same development.…

BY MARK ROWE

NANOTECHNOLOGY can imbue textiles with eye-catching properties, but scientists and watchdogs are increasingly uncertain about the extent to which safety issues surrounding such developments have been explored.

According to the US-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, more than 350 nanotech consumer products are now available, such as stain-resistant clothing, (as well as cosmetics, sunscreens and food containers).…

BY ALAN OSBORN

THE EUROPEAN Commission has brushed aside opposition to removal of the so-called Volkswagen Law by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and plans to pursue the matter in the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Speaking to just-auto, Brussels internal market spokeswoman Catherine Bunyan said the Commission would be sending Germany a "legal final warning", (a "reasoned opinion") that it would be taken back to the ECJ if it did not comply with an earlier ruling that German government authority over VW broke European Union capital movement laws.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Union (EU) and Balkans ministerial council has approved the rules of a dispute settlement mechanism for countries participating within the southeast Europe Energy Community. This links Balkans’ gas (and electricity) regulation with that of EU member states and ensures EU energy legislation is adopted in participating countries.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

The European Investment Bank, the EU’s lending institution, has announced a loan of Euro 125 million to B. Braun Melsungen AG (BBM), a leading international supplier of pharmaceuticals and medical technologies to hospitals, based in Hessen, Germany. The EIB said the money would be used to expand BBM’s research infrastructure and to develop innovative pharmaceutical products and production processes over the period 2008 – 2010.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE G8 group of major economic powers has collectively promised to increase their contributions to help clean up the Chernobyl nuclear complex by Euro 62 million. The money from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the USA and the European Union will help complete a storage facility for more than 20,000 spent fuel assemblies generated during the operation of Chernobyl units 1-3

ENDS…