Search Results for: Germany

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN governments have backed reforms to fight tax evasion and fraud. Importantly, the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers has informally supported changes to the EU savings tax directive, to close a loophole where private citizens could protect bank account information by transferring money to accounts held by companies established to boost their privacy.…

BY MARK ROWE

NUCLEAR energy production costs a lot of money and so it makes some economic sense for smaller countries interested in this climate-change friendly power supply to combine forces on major projects. So it is in eastern Europe, where in February 2007, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland provisionally agreed to build a new nuclear plant at Lithuania’s existing Ignalina site, initially with 3,200 MWe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has drafted a new compromise on the vexed utility unbundling issue, which would see Brussels abandon its quest for complete legal separation between energy producers and transmission operators.

Instead, according to a leaked Commission working paper, it would be satisfied with transmission operators having complete autonomy, extending to being allowed to raise money on financial markets independently of their parent.…

BY ANDREW CAVE

SCARCELY a week goes by without volumes of newsprint or prime broadcasting slots being devoted to new and ingenious ways of mitigating climate change.

Global warming is now widely regarded the single most important issue the world faces, so it is no surprise that it is exercising the minds of the world’s most creative scientists.…

By Monica Dobie

European university scientists are at the heart of a research project is developing a solar powered aircraft that could fly around the world without fuel. This development may have a significantly positive impact on the environment in the long term, as well as a potentially huge overhaul of the airline industry, should the technology become widely adopted.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, in New Delhi; SAEED AKHTAR BALOCH, in Lahore; and KEITH NOYAHR, in Colombo

THE SOUTH Asian knitwear industry is experienced mixed fortunes at present, with the impact of China’s production boom and the global liberalisation of the textile sector still changing sub-continental fortunes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A DEAL has been struck at the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers over unbundling of gas (and electricity) networks, which will allow formal ownership of production and distribution operations.

However, this compromise option will insist on transmission systems being managed by an independent operator.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

GERMANY’S largest vineyard has been ordered by the European Commission to repay Euro 541,859 in illegal subsidies handed out by its owner – the regional government of Hesse. Following a detailed investigation, Brussels has concluded that the writing off of losses made by Hessische Staatsweingüter until December 2002 broke European Union (EU) state aid rules and so must be repaid, with interest.…

BY MIRANDA L. LI , in Shanghai

AGE spots are the first signs of aging among Asian women, while Caucasian Europeans and Americans suffer much earlier from wrinkles. This was one of the main findings presented during a symposium on the latest research on skin aging, according to Eric Perrier, president of French luxury group Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) Recherche, which organised the May 12 forum in Shanghai, China.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MORE than a fifth of European teenagers are overweight or obese, failing to eat sufficient fruit and vegetables, the European Union (EU) HELENA project has warned.

HELENA (healthy lifestyle in Europe by nutrition in adolescence) researchers assessed 3,000 13-17-year-olds in Austria, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Spain and Sweden.…