Search Results for: Russia

BY MARK ROWE
THE RUSSIAN oil and gas industry is one sector where comparison with the matryoshka doll – the dolls beloved by tourists that open up to reveal a series of ever smaller dolls within – seems particularly apt. Inside the outer doll, which represents the industry as a whole, you find a smaller doll representing Gazprom, the natural gas monolith.…

BY MARK ROWE
IT is tempting to think that all is well in the Russian cigarette market. And, in fairness, in many ways this is the case. Filter and light cigarettes production is growing, while the manufacture of plain cigarettes and filterless papirossi is decreasing.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE NETHERLANDS government has shown how rich countries can fulfil their Kyoto Protocol commitments by promoting the overseas development of efficient green energy production, claimed the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The Dutch are funding a Euro 5 million conversion of a Bulgarian paper mill from generating energy via oil and gas to biomass via the EBRD-managed Euro 32 million Netherlands Emissions Reduction Co-operation Fund.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PRESSURE on oil companies to continue cleansing their fuels of potential pollutants continues to be applied within the European Union (EU), with the European Commission preparing for the introduction of a new standard ‘Euro 5’ in 2010. It has advised EU member states to harmonise any tax concessions encouraging the use of diesel cars cleaner than the ‘Euro 4’ emissions standard, (which became compulsory on January 1).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITAIN and eight other European countries have signed a memorandum of understanding about constructing a groundbreaking X-ray research laser, so acute it could measure chemical reactions in real time. The UK, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Germany have agreed to negotiate in detail an inter-governmental arrangement for building an approximately three-kilometre-long underground laser generator.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) health and consumer protection Commissioner Markos Kyprianou has become the first member of the new European Commission to visit Russia, to cement last year’s agreement on sanitary regulations. Moscow had temporarily banned EU meat exports over a lack of harmonisation regarding European veterinary certificates, a dispute that was eventually solved.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
RUSSIA and Lithuania’s promise to environmentally assess oil exploration and production in the Baltic Sea, 22 kilometres from a World Heritage site, has prompted UN cultural organisation UNESCO to abandoned plans to declare the Curonian Spit officially endangered.…

BY LIZ HALL, in Alicante

SINCE March 2005, Operation White Whale, an extensive international anti-money-laundering operation spearheaded by the Spain’s National Police (the Policia Nacional), has produced the arrest of 57 people and the laundering of at least Euro 250 million euros obtained through illegal drug trafficking, according to Spain’s Interior Ministry (Ministerio del Interior).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has supported proposals to allow Finland re-impose restrictions beer its citizens can import from Russia, because of fears about booming cross-border sales. Under European law, private travellers can normally import 200 litres of beer from third countries into Finland.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
MONTREAL, Canada-based Alcan Inc will invest US$30 million in building a tobacco packaging plant in St Petersburg, Russia. Production will begin before the end of April 2006 with more than 120 people employed at the facility. “The Russian packaging market represents an attractive growth opportunity and is strategically important to Alcan,” said Christel Bories (CORRECT SPELLING), President and Chief Executive Officer of Alcan Packaging, which employs about 73,000 people in 56 countries.…