Search Results for: Indonesia

BY ALAN OSBORN

SUSTAINABILITY has moved firmly to the top of the corporate agenda in the oils and fats sector following Unilever’s announcement in May that it intended to have all of its palm oil certified sustainable by 2015. By any measure this would be a bold pledge but coming from the world’s largest consumer of palm oil (Unilever takes 4% of total global production to make its food and cosmetic products) it serves additionally to raise the bar for others.…

By Eric Lyman in Rome

There are problems in the world that cannot be confronted with any success by a single state, no matter how powerful. Big environmental issues and world hunger and poverty immediately come to mind, along with many regional peacekeeping needs and most economic and trade-related problems.

Enter multilateralism, the consensus-driven process that democratically pulls countries together for collective problem solving, usually under the auspices of an umbrella organisation such as the United Nations or the World Trade Organisation.

Multilateralism has been hailed as the natural evolution from the bipolar world order that marked the period after World War II – with influence split between the camps of US and the Soviet Union – and the unipolar order based on the power and influence of the US since the end of the Cold War.…

By Keith Nuthall

Plans to sweep away some restrictions preventing private universities and higher education service providers from teaching, researching and examining in foreign countries have been put on ice at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

This follows the collapse of negotiations at the July ministerial meeting of the WTO IN Geneva, Switzerland, which had lasted 10 days.…

BY MARK GODFREY, in Beijing

WORRIES about inflation and food shortages have left the Chinese government struggling to balance efforts to temper inflation with its ambitious biofuels development programme. Increasing demand for food and biofuels in China have been a key driver in increasing global consumption of fats and oils at an average 4% per year according to the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO).…

BY JULIAN RYALL, in Tokyo

THE OBSESSION among many European women for tanned skin is fading, particularly among women in their late 30s, according to a new study by Japan’s Kanebo Cosmetics, meaning there is a small but growing market for whitening products.…

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 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

LARGE mining companies take the environment seriously today, maybe rather more than in times past. They are devoting significant resources to reducing or mitigating the environmental problems caused by mining. But what about the small and artisanal mines that pepper much of the developing world?…

By Keith Nuthall and Monica Dobie

Universities and colleges are constantly working with business and industry to undertake commercially valuable research. University World News here again features a selection of these cutting edge developments in its business pages.

*The University of Latvia’s Institute of Polymer Mechanics Eureka has helped create construction bricks with domestic waste polymers usually considered too varied or dirty to be recycled.…

BY DINAH GARDNER

SINGAPORE may rank highly on global anti-corruption ratings league tables but it has been coming under considerable fire recently for its strict bank secrecy laws. Last October, in the wake of the brutal crackdown on protests in Myanmar, the island state was accused of being a money laundering hub for top junta officials.…