Search Results for: Scotland

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRITAIN’S National Fraud Initiative (NFI) has reported a 25% increase in fraudulent applications for government services across England, with the recession apparently increasing dishonesty. The NFI said it had identified fraud, overpayments and errors totalling almost GBPounds GBP229 million for 2010/11, compared with GBP 189 million in 2008/9.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

CONSTRUCTION in Europe is traditionally associated with metal, steel and other heavy materials, but plastics and plastic composites are increasingly used as energy and cost-efficient options for buildings, bridges, houses and other structures.

Construction contributes more than 20% of demand for plastics in Europe – the second largest market segment after packaging, according to Brussels, Belgium-based trade association PlasticsEurope.…

BY ROBERT STOKES, IN EDINBURGH; LEAH GERMAIN, IN EDMONTON; AND PAUL COCHRANE, IN BEIRUT

AS the price of oil continues to rise and the demand for the valuable commodity increases worldwide, oil and gas companies are making major profits – yet this industry remains one where safety issues and hard physical work can cause injury.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD AND JONATHAN DYSON, IN LIMA

SOME of world’s most coveted fibres, Vicuña, Guanaco, Alpaca and Llama, all hail from rugged Andean region in South America. Vicuña fibre, known locally and in the trade as the "gold of the Andes" and "the fabric of the gods" is a key part of the global high-end luxury market for rare and superfine fibres.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

IT is easy to think of the European Union’s (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as a more or less total rip-off when you read that a majority of the 27 member countries were asked to pay back some Euro EUR578 million of farm subsidies provided by the European Commission in 2010 (the last year for which figures are available) because of irregularities in spending, including lack of adequate control.…

BY ROBERT STOKES, IN EDINBURGH

INVESTORS want to make the United Kingdom the hot spot for new gas storage projects in the European Union (EU). The UK tops the EU’s league table of projects either applied for or with official consent: 11.1 billion cubic metres (bcm) of space compared with 4.6bcm of current operational capacity.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

NATIONALISM and the energy industry have made uneasy bedfellows throughout history, yet Scotland is attracting substantial international investment in renewables despite having, since May and for the first time, a majority government committed to winning independence from the UK.…

BY MARK ROWE

FOR the pharmaceutical industry, nanotechnology has until recently been a horizon issue. The public focus has lain elsewhere – on novel foods and super-efficient electronic devices. But nanomedicine was brought to prominence in July with the news that a patient received a new windpipe grown from a nanomaterial-based tissue scaffold, seeded with the patient’s own stem cells.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

A new car-sharing model is being tried out in Germany, which links quality manufacturer BMW with an existing car club to attempt to offer business customers a new concept in fleet hire. Time will tell whether the idea catches on and moves to the UK.…

BY MARGUERITE-JEANNE DESCHAMPS, MINI PANT ZACHARIAH and WANG FANGQING

While sales of alcohol in pubs and bars in North America, Europe and the UK have seen a steady decline since the global economic downturn, experts are saying the shift from on-trade to off-trade sales of alcohol has not really had a financial impact on the alcoholic beverage industry as a whole.…