Search Results for: South Africa

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States has announced its first offer of reductions to food duties in its bid to create a 34-country Free Trade Area of the Americas pact. It plans to slash duties on 56 per cent of agricultural imports from north and south American countries by 2005 (ignoring those from Canada and Mexico) and expects reciprocal offers.…

BY RICHARD HURST
BOTSWANA’S diamond sales rose by 4.7 per cent to US$2.17 billion in 2002, due mainly to a buoyant US market, according to Debswana, the company responsible for all the country’s output, which is a partnership between the Botswana government and the South African mining company De Beers.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
INDIA, Thailand, Pakistan, New Zealand, Australia and nine other countries in south and south-east Asia are to better control foot-and-mouth disease, by strengthening links between national laboratories. Notably, a new regional reference laboratory in Thailand will be established, sending out affordable test kits to countries that cannot usually afford them.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FIRST trials in African airspace of the European global navigation overlay service (EGNOS) have taken place (Feb 27-29) on board flights into the Senegalese capital of Dakar. The tests, staged by the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Commission, and ASECNA, (the aviation navigation safety agency for Africa and Madagascar), were carried out as a first phase of plans to install global navigation satellite system (GNSS) services over central Africa.…

BY MARK ROWE
IT is only four letters long but for a little word AFTA is having a big impact on the Malaysian tobacco industry. AFTA, the impending free trade block for south-east Asia, is forcing the Malaysian tobacco industry, widely regarded as having the most sophisticated (and expensive) leaf production and manufacturing infrastructure in the region, to radically overhaul the way it goes about its business.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON, in Newcastle, England, MATTHEW BRACE, in Brisbane and RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg
ASK a human to find a needle in a haystack and they would probably spend five minutes at the most sifting through the stalks, then get bored and walk away.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HEADS of veterinary services from all African countries have agreed that better monitoring of livestock movements, including the identification of animals, is required to stem the flow of disease amongst the continent’s farms. The Conference of the Regional Commission for Africa of the Organisation International des Épizooties agreed the steps would promote trade and local meat supplies.…

BY PHILIP FINE

THE PROPOSED acquisition of Bayer’s high-performance pigment business by Sun Chemical, the US subsidiary of Japan’s Dainippon Ink and Chemicals, has a hit a snag. The US Federal Trade Commission says that before any sale goes through, Dainippon must sell off its US-based perylene business.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE AUSTRALIAN government has resorted to hiring a public relations firm to persuade the citizens of South Australia (SA) to abandon its opposition to plans to install a low level nuclear waste in outback Woomera.

Hill and Knowlton, the international communications company, which has with 66 offices worldwide, has been given an A$300,000 federal government contract to run a campaign from its Melbourne office.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE’S Suez water company and the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) have launched a joint drinking water improvements programme that will provide around Euro 300,000 in its first three years and will initially concentrate on the Volga-Caspian region.…