Search Results for: South Africa

BY KEITH NUTHALL
COOPERATION between the European Union (EU) and Russia will be intensified regarding constructing energy infrastructure projects of joint interest, under a detailed “road-map” approved in Moscow. Russian president Vladimir Putin, European Commission president José Manuel Barroso and EU council president Jean-Claude Juncker signed the deal, which also highlights improving the safe transport of energy products, “by pipeline, rail and sea”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is planning to lend Turkey’s Tofas Turk Otomobil Fabrikasi Euro 200 million to help fund a joint venture with France’s Peugeot-Citroën and Italy’s Fiat Auto, to develop, produce and sell light vans. The loan would fund half of the project’s projected Euro 400 million cost.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is planning to create a Euro 50 million loan facility to be on lent by banks in Bulgaria to individuals and households making energy efficiency improvements to their homes. The country – which joins the European Union (EU) in 2007 – is a notorious spendthrift when it comes to energy usage.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE MEMBER states of the Mercosur trade bloc in South America have agreed to harmonise their authorisation and registration procedures for cosmetic, perfume and personal hygiene products companies. The aim of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay is to remove restrictions preventing their trade in these products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has helped broker a deal with seven Balkans countries involving them reducing the environmental damage caused by their mining industries. Welcoming the agreement, UNEP highlighted the potential problems caused by mining for zinc, cadmium, copper, bauxite, silver and gold in Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Macedonia, Serbia & Montenegro, and (effectively independent) Kosovo.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH, in Brussels
A RADICAL change in the fishing year political calendar is being planned by the European Commission, which hopes to introduce a new system in 2007, Fisheries Commissioner Dr Joe Borg told Fishing News last week.

Speaking in an exclusive and wide-ranging interview, he expressed impatience with the traditional timing of the fishing quota-setting schedule, which annually inflicts an unnecessary crisis management on both the sector and governments alike before every Christmas.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
THERE are not many countries left on the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) blacklist of dodgy jurisdictions regarding money laundering regulations, and one of the last stragglers – the South Pacific nation of the Cook Islands (a New Zealand dependency) – was provisionally removed in February.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
CHINA’S presence at the meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in Paris in February was a powerful reminder of how the world’s great economic, trade and regulatory institutions are changing, with consequences that few people probably fully grasp today.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is planning to make large low interest loans to two British utilities, to fund major capital works schemes. In Northern Ireland, the publicly-owned European Union (EU) bank wants to lend the province’s Water Service up to GBPounds 88 million to help improve the quality, quantity and security of its treated water supplies to 781,000 customers, ensuring compliance with the EU drinking water directive.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE PROBLEM of excessive or nerve-shredding noise in factories and offices is to be highlighted by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EASHW) this year with an awareness campaign covering 31 countries and culminating in a European noise week in October.…