Search Results for: London

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LONDON-based oil and gas exploration and production company SOCO International will be lent up to US$45 million by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) to help finance its investments in emerging markets, particularly Vietnam and Yemen. SOCO wants to help stem Yemen’s declining oil production, and help Vietnam secure more market-based foreign direct investment.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE CLEAR message from the first meeting of the Sustainable Energy Forum in Amsterdam last month (October) was that the higher the price of fossil fuels then the greater the need for national governments to support the introduction of renewable energy sources through subsidies, tax breaks, technical assistance and the like.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INDEPENDENT Inquiry Committee into the United Nations’ Iraq Oil for Food programme scandal has claimed 14 British companies paid kickbacks to the Saddam Hussein regime to secure contracts to supply humanitarian supplies under the scheme. There were also four British companies that paid “surcharges” to secure contracts to lift oil from Iraq to help buy medicines, food and other supposed essentials.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INDEPENDENT Inquiry Committee into the United Nations’ Iraq Oil for Food programme scandal has claimed 14 British companies paid kickbacks to the Saddam Hussein regime to secure contracts to supply humanitarian supplies. There were also four British companies that paid “surcharges” to secure contracts to lift oil from Iraq to help buy medicines, food and other essentials.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ROLE of the Caribbean as a staging point for ill-gotten gains goes back to the trans-Atlantic misadventures of the first European ships over 400 years ago. It would appear some habits die hard. Wesley Gibbings reports from Port of Spain, Trinidad.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
BRITAIN is not normally thought of being subject to landslides and avalanches in the way that Alpine countries are, but the coming of climate change has made these natural disasters a real and potentially very expensive threat to us.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A MARINE litter clean-up campaign involving Scottish fishermen has received a global United Nations award. Glasgow PR firm Weber Shandwick picked up the 2005 UN Grand Award for outstanding achievement in public relations for its Save the North Sea campaign.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE METEROLOGICAL Office, the UK’s national weather service, the Met Office, has launched a new version of its satellite-distribution weather advice service. The new upgraded SADIS2G (second generation) is being rolled out to air traffic control units (ATCs) and will gradually supersede the existing SADIS system.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE OPEN Runway system, produced by the UK’s Met Office, (Met for Meteorological), has proved popular in helping British airports to mitigate the potential delays associated with extreme weather events. Essentially, Open Runway gives airports an advance warning of the need for runway clearance and gritting in the event of snow and ice.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
IT may never equal the four-fold rise in the price of a barrel of crude oil that took place between 1973 and 1974, but this year’s hike to more than US$60 a barrel has given all those industries dependent on the stability of fuel prices a severe shock, and the aviation industry is one of those reeling from the increases.…