Search Results for: Ireland

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AFTER the disappointment of the Copenhagen summit on climate change, it is perhaps encouraging to note that the auto industry – so often painted as the bad boy of the climate change issue – really is reducing its vehicles’ carbon dioxide emissions.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH and ALAN OSBORN

LINES are being drawn for another titanic battle in Brussels between the tobacco industry and anti-smoking activists. And the weapon of choice is lobbying.

The first phase, forcing cigarette companies to sell their product in plain, unbranded packets without logos, has already started following the 31-page document of non-binding recommendations (not a directive) published last year by the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers and which was briskly approved by the European Parliament.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A YEAR of struggle would be the best way to sum up 2009 as far as the global clothing and textile industry is concerned. The depth and severity of the worldwide recession left many clothing and textile companies reeling, even impacting upon China, which had previously been dominating global markets.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

NOMINEES for a new European Commission taking office for five years from February have been released. Regarding the posts of importance to the pharmaceutical sector, they are Malta’s John Dalli, for health and consumer policy; and Ireland’s Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, for research and innovation.…

BY EMMA JACKSON and KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has earmarked Euro 275 million in its 2010 budgets to eradicate, control and monitor common diseases, giving priority to those which could be transmitted to humans who eat or come in contact with contaminated meat.…

By Katherine Dunn, International News Services

The travails of Roman Polanski in Switzerland this autumn have offered some lessons to the world’s wanted over extradition laws and how to deal with them. The Polish director has of course been living in France, with little fear of extradition, since 1978, when he fled the USA facing statutory rape charges. Only now of course this autumn was he arrested on an American warrant on a visit to Switzerland, while movie stars and directors crowed for his release.

Now, he is out on bail, secured with the help of French president Nicholas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, who intervened on Polanski’s behalf. 

As Polanski languishes in Alpine house arrest in a luxury Swiss chalet, it’s clear that extradition is still, at base, a political decision – and to avoid it, one key is not supporting international causes unpopular with powerful governments.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

MEASURED by what’s been happening in the European cigarette market over the past 10 to 15 years, 2008 – and what we’ve seen of 2009 so far – hasn’t been that bad. It may not have been good, exactly, but considering the global recession few people will have been looking for uplift.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A MAJOR European research project is to spend Euro 44 million on developing tiny components to help electric vehicles improve their performance, so that they can better compete with models powered with liquid fuels. The Fiat and Audi-backed E3CAR (Energy efficient electrical car) project will especially focus on emerging nanotechnologies as its researchers aim to boost electric cars’ often less than stellar driving abilities.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

THE RECOVERY of criminally-acquired assets is driven by two quite different considerations – first as a deterrent to financial crime and second as a means of compensating the victim through restitution. Clearly where the fight against money laundering in concerned, the first is the more important.…

By David Haworth, in Brussels

Next Monday, (19/10) Mrs. Catherine Day will deliver the most important speech of her life.

Who is she, you’ll probably ask. Indeed, for someone of immense influence this tall, blond middle-aged Irishwoman is a reclusive figure, shy – not writing very much, still less seeking out audiences.

But, as the secretary general of the European Commission, the lady is the power behind Commission president José Manuel Barroso’s throne.

She is the institution’s leaderene though hiding behind the good manners and discretion of a classic civil servant. Catherine Day is seldom heard and rarely seen.

In a few days, however, she will stand before a huge audience of colleagues to explain to them how the clumsily-titled ‘external action service’ is to be developed and how it will affect their working lives.…