Search Results for: Italian

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT was a case of nature outdoing the toughest solvents. Art restorers have used bacteria to eat through glue that has for 50 years covered a medieval Italian fresco, following a botched post-war restoration attempt. Bombs had damaged the ‘Conversion and Battle of Saint Efisio’ by Spinello Aretino in the Camposanto cemetery, Pisa, and restorers unwisely attempted to pull the frescos from the wall intact using organic glue and canvases.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE PRESENT European Commission under the presidency of Romano Prodi has sometimes been said to be ‘green-minded,’ in that it takes a more friendly attitude towards the environment than either its predecessors or the European Union member governments.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE REFORM of the European Union’s common agricultural policy regarding sugar production is a priority of the EU’s June-December Italian presidency. Italian agriculture minister Giovanni Alemanno said Italy would push reform based on “in-depth studies.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE NEW Italian presidency of the European Union has announced that a key policy priority, (until it leaves office in December), will be the systematic knitting of EU energy policies with environmental considerations. It has already staged a meeting of European energy and environment ministers on this issue, including a debate on whether energy liberalisation has harmed or helped the environment.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE NEW Italian presidency of the European Union has announced that its top key energy priorities – until it leaves office in December – will include the passage into law of the proposed directives on co-generation, (alongside legislation on oil and gas stocks).…

BY PHILIP FINE

DEMOGRAPHICS are changing the contents of supermarket freezers in the US. ‘Ethnic’ frozen food sales reached US$2.2 billion in 2001, according to the American Frozen Food Institute. The biggest growth has been Mexican, which grew 20.6 percent to US$488 million, followed by Asian, which include Chinese, Thai and Indian, up 12.3 percent, totalling US$463 million.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE ‘LOOTING of civilisation’ in Baghdad, with its vivid images of wanton destruction and looting inflicted upon the Iraqi national museum, was all too familiar for those who have followed events in Afghanistan. But everyone must hope the parallels stop there, for the experience of those quietly seeking to recover Afghanistan’s glorious archaeological past does not bode well for the long-term restoration of Iraq’s treasures.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN ITALIAN conservation group has teamed up with the European Space Agency to collate satellite data of water pollution, in a bid to influence national government policies on land use and urbanisation. The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) Italia is concerned about environmental damage being caused at overdeveloped “hot spots,” especially on the coast.…

Keith Nuthall
EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have signalled that they are preparing to cave into Italian government blackmail tying its agreement to a proposed comprehensive tax package to the waiving of fines levied on Italian milk producers for exceeding their common agricultural policy quotas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ITALIAN government is being threatened with legal action at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over its concern that it has failed to force Naples’ municipal authority to put its city gas supply contract renewal out to open tender.…