Search Results for: Russia

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE ORGANISATION for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has criticised weak implementation of anti-counterfeiting laws in countries that are a major source of fake medicines. In its report the Economic Impact of Counterfeiting and Piracy, the OECD noted that Brazil, China, India, and Russia, all have trademark laws with civil and criminal remedies against pharmaceutical counterfeiting, including "graduated levels of fines and terms of imprisonment".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ENVIRONMENTAL health officers may think there are a lot of smokers in the UK – in 2005, 24% of adults aged 16 or over in Britain smoked cigarettes, but spare a thought for officials in Greece – home of Europe’s keenest smokers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is refusing to give up on Russia and its neighbours as stable energy partners for the future, despite the largely inconclusive summit between member states and Moscow last month (October) in Mafra, Portugal. It failed to make progress on the demands from the European Commission for reciprocal liberalisation in Russian energy markets, should the EU allow Russian companies – notably Gazprom – a free hand in member states gas sectors.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL and ALAN OSBORN

GEOGRAPHICALLY Russia is part of Europe. Moscow is 1,557 miles from London, but 3,456 miles from New York. The Russian capital is also just 760 miles from Stockholm, as the crow flies. These figures are worth considering when trying understanding the often fraught energy diplomacy between Russia and the European Union (EU).…

BY MARK ROWE, in London, JULIAN RYALL, in Tokyo, and RACHEL JONES, in Caracas

PERSONAL care products – soaps, cosmetics, lotions and hair products – have always been important consumers of vegetable and animal-based oils and fats. Yet, this is a complex sub-sector of the global oils and fats industry.…

BY RACHEL JONES, in Caracas

FOLLOWING the late-November OPEC summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez visited Tehran to discuss joint ventures over oil refining and then chuckle with his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, over the weakened US dollar.…

BY NICK HOLDSWORTH, in Moscow

Russia’s recent submarine expedition beneath the polar icecap – and its subsequent controversial territorial claim to a large part of the North Pole – has sparked renewed debate over who has the right to explore for and extract the icy region’s oil and mineral reserves.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A CHINK of light has emerged in the perennially taut energy relations between the European Union (EU) and Russia: both sides have agreed to establish a committee to examine how a system of gas unbundling ‘reciprocity’ might work.…

BY MARK ROWE

RUSSIA has banned imports of sugar from its close political ally, Belarus. A bilateral agreement excuses Belarus from Russian import duties, but Russian authorities have accused Belarus of exporting sugarcane from Cuba and claiming it to be home grown, to avoid these taxes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE NEED to limit particulate matter in Britain and continental western Europe has been underlined by the European Environment Agency’s (EEA) latest assessment of pollution in Europe. In its fourth annual environmental health check of Europe, central Asia and Asiatic Russia, the agency concluded that much of western, central and south east Europe, especially urban areas, "experience daily average PM10 concentrations in excess of 50 ?g/m3…