Search Results for: International business

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE MAIN complaint of demonstrators with metal bars through their noses who harangue international organisations such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is that they allow important decisions to be taken in secret that are binding on democratically elected parliaments.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
LONGSTANDING Canadian meat traders have vowed not to ship to Cuba in future because the Caribbean island dumped them for American competitors.

The switch followed an agreement in November 2001 by Fidel Castro to buy agricultural goods from US companies, following a hurricane that ravaged his country.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HALF-HEARTED efforts by European Union Member States to impose controls on shabby shipping have been blamed for the disastrous sinking of the ill-named Prestige oil tanker, off Galicia, Spain. Placing on record their disgust at the environmental tragedy, the Council of Europe’s environment committee deplored “the negligence of governments and their lack of any real determination to provide themselves with the means of preventing such disasters – or at least minimising their impact.”…

Keith Nuthall
A CONSULTANT for the California wine industry thinks the US will be prepared to cut a deal at next September’s World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico over European demands for a mandatory wine and spirits register of geographical indications.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
A FORMER president of the Thai Leather Goods Association has said that the Thailand leather industry has to improve its designs to more effectively compete globally. Sunanta Wuthisakul said that this would build upon the standard product quality of local manufacturers, which in general “currently met international standards,” notably those of the big brands which use Thai leather.…

BY PHILIP FINE

THE AMERICAN Textile Manufacturers Institute (ATMI) is urging its government to take action against Indonesia’s ban on textile imports from all countries. The ATMI said the move flies in the face of international rules and its chairman, Van May, says a fair response would be for the United States to immediately prohibit all imports of Indonesian textile goods which totalled US$350 million last year, until the ban is lifted.…

Keith Nuthall
THE INTERNATIONAL Air Transport Association and the US’s Federal Aviation Administration are launching a CD-rom designed to train and raise the awareness of pilots and air traffic controllers in reducing the risk of runway incursions by taxiing aircraft.

Delegates at a recent International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) conference on the topic in Mexico City heard that this Runway Safety Education and Training Aid was necessary because – said one speaker – “in recent years the number of runway incursions has increased significantly worldwide,” and stands to increase further as civil aviation grows.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BURIAL of carbon dioxide underground has been examined by an international workshop on reducing CO2 air emissions convened by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. It debated good practice such as International Energy Agency sponsorship of projects dealing with the capture, transport and underground storage of CO2.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MINING companies planning projects in the tropics should conduct detailed assessments of potential disruption to indigenous peoples, before going ahead, the United Nations has said. Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said that the same legally binding standards regarding environmental impact assessments should apply to anthropological checks on the “life-styles and cultures of indigenous peoples.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A RESTRICTED trade in wool from captured wild vicuna in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile has been approved by a conference of parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

The United Nations (UN) convention’s members agreed in Santiago, Chile, to lift a ban in trading these small beasts “for the purpose of allowing international trade in wool sheared from live animals…bearing the label vicuna Argentina, Bolivia or Chile.”…