Search Results for: Russia

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has agreed to respect previous nuclear material supply and nuclear fuel cycle service deals from Russia to Bulgaria and Romania, signed prior to these two countries’ accession to the EU in January. Brussels and Moscow have agreed to expand the existing EU-Russia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement to incorporate pre-existing deals with Romania and Bulgaria, although nuclear industry agreements must now be formally notified to the European Commission, and amended if they breach any terms of the Euratom treaty.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have been asked to swiftly approve a range of amended quotas affecting UK fishing fleets, covering haddock and herring in the north east Atlantic, as well as some smaller deep sea catches. Following a deal negotiated in January between the EU, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norway and Russia on fishing Atlanto-Scandian (Norwegian spring-spawning) herring stock in the north-east Atlantic, European Commission officials have drawn up fresh quotas, to replace those agreed late last year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, ALAN OSBORN and PAUL COCHRANE
WITH the European Union (EU) securing around 25% of its gas from Russia and natural gas being an ever more important fuel for thermal power plants, the failure thus far of the European Union and Russia to agree a new long-term energy agreement has to be of concern to the electricity industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PHILIP Morris International (PMI) has released a detailed intelligence dossier on cigarette and other tobacco product counterfeiting, in a bid to encourage the international cooperation it deems necessary to effectively fight this crime. The report highlights 17 countries around the world where it thinks cigarette counterfeiting is a particular problem and where the cigarette company has specific advice: Latvia, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Russia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Egypt, Belize, Panama, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil and Ghana.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MANDATORY consultations will be staged between Russia and the European Union (EU) in future, should either side be planning to impose health-based import restrictions on the other’s food exports. This is the essence of an agreement expected to be initialled by EU ministers and Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, at a meeting in Luxembourg in mid-April.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SECRETARIAT of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has published export quotas for caviar for 2007 from sturgeon in the Heilongjiang/Amur River between Russia and China. The quotas will be 29% of 2005 levels – the last year for which quotas were approved, creating a 3,761kg limit on beluga exports, the world’s most valuable caviar.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has approved the agreement struck between the European Commission and Russia over limiting fees charged for Siberian overflights on routes to and from EU airports. The deal limits previous high charges and will come into force on September 1, having been signed at the oncoming EU-Russia summit in Samara, Russia, on May 18.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD) is planning to lend Euro 140 million to Russia’s second largest steel pipe producer to help it build a steel mini-mill able to produce annually 950,000 tones of billets for seamless pipes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States Trade Representative (USTR) has released a series of detailed reports outlining the threats posed by counterfeiters worldwide and the inability of many governments to fight the problem.

Its sheaf of intelligence includes comprehensive warnings from cigarette giant Philip Morris, a company that has adopted a high profile in fighting counterfeiters and smugglers.…

BY MARK ROWE
ONE of the prime motivations for Japan Tobacco’s takeover of Gallaher Group was to help the company establish a presence in Western Europe, where it figures only slightly. But the most seismic effects of the takeover may well be felt in neighbouring Russia, the world’s third largest cigarette market, where two thirds of men and a third of women are smokers, prices are low despite hikes in excise duties, and the habit has little of the social stigma attached to it in the US and Britain.…