Search Results for: Germany

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GOVERNMENTS and international organisations have highlighted tobacco smuggling as one of the largest illegal drains on their tax revenues. An international conference has brought law enforcement professionals together with health officials to fight this problem. Keith Nuthall reports.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is signalling a possible move from its ban on hybrid or inter-specific vines being used in appellation brands by paying for a research project into their quality and disease resistance, “taking into account all the scientific elements in order to provide a basis for decision.”…

KEITH NUTHALL
APPLICATIONS made by Nicaragua and Germany for the trade in two hardwoods to be controlled under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) have been supported by the CITES secretariat. The species are big-leaf mahogany (Brazilian mahogany) and tree-of-life (pockwood or sonora guaiacum).…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank has drawn up plans to lend up to Euro 25 million to a German company Eurostamp Deutschland, to enable it to construct and install a production plant for stamped and assembled auto-body parts. The factory would be sited in one of the poorest areas of Saxony, in eastern Germany, which is labelled as an Objective 1 zone by the European Commission and hence eligible for generous EU development grants; the project would create 90 new jobs until 2005 and 150 until 2007.…

BY MARK ROWE
CAN the European Union’s single skies plan become a reality inside 30 months? It is a topical subject, with the recent crash over Germany underlining the arguments in favour and against the project, which should lead to planes flying above 28,000 feet being guided and controlled by unified units of air traffic controllers, replacing the current piecemeal system of national flight monitoring and guidance.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
EASTERN European countries that built nuclear power plants while under the communist system never thought they would face deadlines for closing them down as a prerequisite for joining the European Union. Neither had they built in the next stage – decommissioning – into the prices charged for electricity in the way that the western European nuclear plant operators had done from the start.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
NOT many items of legislation from Brussels have provoked quite such anger among farmers over the years as the nitrates directive, which seeks to protect water from nitrate pollution caused by the application of organic and inorganic fertilisers to agricultural land.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
AN INTERNATIONAL team of scientists based at Galway, in Ireland, has made a surprising discovery that could have significant consequences for future climate change.

The EU-sponsored Parforce research project, led by the National University of Ireland, has found that iodine vapours released by marine algae can help thicken haze and cloud layers, blocking sunlight and thereby partially offsetting global warming from greenhouse gases.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has filed an appeal against the dismissal of its cigarette smuggling action in the US against three tobacco companies: Philip Morris, R. J. Reynolds and Japan Tobacco. Notably, it has received formal support in the proceedings from the US Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association for its action, along with the World Health Organisation, the US Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union and its Member States will have to improve their efforts to curb emissions of greenhouse gases if they want to meet their targets under the Kyoto Protocol, a European Environment Agency report has claimed. The EU is committed to cutting its combined emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases to an average of eight per cent below 1990 levels in 2008 -2012.…