Search Results for: Germany

By Keith Nuthall

Basic academic research – freed from specific commercial or industrial goals – has a new champion in Europe: Bernd Huber, the new chairman of the League of European Research Universities (LERU). Huber, already president of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Munich), in Germany, has been appointed head of Europe’s elite research higher education institutions for the next three years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

LAST May, a coordinated attack on essential computer networks in the tiny Baltic republic of Estonia set nerves upon edge amongst European Internet security specialists. Following the removal of a Russian war memorial from the centre of its capital Tallinn, a still unidentified group of computer users bombarded Estonian political, government, media and banking websites with so much data, they were forced offline.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

THE EUROPEAN Commission has gone for broke over the fitting of new safety technology in lorries and has formally proposed a law insisting on its use. The transport industry has broadly welcomed the move, but fears it will increase costs, and is concerned that the technology is still in its infancy.…

BY KARRYN CARTELLE

AUSTRALIA is currently ranked as the eighth largest market in the world – third largest within the Asia-Pacific region after Japan and Hong Kong – in terms of its total stock market capitalisation of AUD$1.63 trillion (USD$1.53 trillion) in 2007 (World Federation of Exchanges figures).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRITAIN has one of the European Union’s (EU) worst rates of salmonella contamination of slaughtered pigs, a new study from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has found. Analysing data collected from 2006 to 2007, the EU agency has concluded that 21.2% of slaughtered pigs within the UK had contracted the disease, compared to an EU-wide average of 10.3%.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AN ITALIAN cosmetics company can trademark its own name, judges ruled. Germany Otto GmbH & Co wanted to stop Italy’s L’Altra Moda securing EU-wide trademark rights to its name for soaps, perfumes, cosmetics and hair lotions. Otto unsuccessfully argued at the European Court of Justice this registration should be blocked over existing rights to mark ‘Alba Moda’.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

HEADS of governments of the European Union (EU) and the European Commission have cleared the way for EU member states to reduce excise duties on petrol and diesel, as a short term measure to fight rising prices. A communiqué following Thursday and Friday’s (19-20 June) EU summit in Brussels, told the 27 member states: "Measures can be considered to alleviate the impact of higher oil and gas prices on the poorer sections of the population, but should remain short-term and targeted."…

BY MARK ROWE

ONE of the first responses to concerns about climate change involved the search to sequester carbon, a component of the major greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. Increasingly, efforts are focussing on how to deal with another greenhouse gas, methane.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH, in Brussels

WITH the launch of the long-debated Galileo orbiting satellite system now largely secure, attention is being turned to its varied applications and services. These were debated last week (Thurs June 12) at a half day conference for European Parliament members and European Commission officials.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

LAST May, a coordinated attack on essential computer networks in the tiny Baltic republic of Estonia set nerves upon edge amongst European Internet security specialists. Following the removal of a Russian war memorial from the centre of its capital Tallinn, a still unidentified group of computer users bombarded Estonian political, government, media and banking websites with so much data, they were forced offline.…