Search Results for: Spain

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 KEITH NUTHALL

ALUMINA producers in Ireland, Italy and France have escaped an order from the European Commission that they pay their respective governments additional excise duty for heavy fuel oil they bought between 2002 and 2003. Brussels had told them to pay up because the companies had enjoyed a reduced rate of duty, which the Commission concluded was an illegal disguised subsidy.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Union (EU) research project commanding a budget of Euro EUR1.4 million is to develop a portable device able to detect minute contamination within pharmaceutical manufacturing lines. Of course, keeping these spotless is of critical importance to the pharma sector to prevent the contamination of medicines.…

BY WANG FANGQING, IN SHANGHAI

WHILE China is desperately in need of nurses – 1.9 million to be exact, according to the nation’s ministry of health – the opportunities for overseas healthcare providers who are not ethnically Chinese are limited, as the government requires all nurses working in China to be able to pass a national test in Mandarin.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is coming down hard on European Union (EU) member states which have yet to sufficiently liberalise their natural gas industries, breaching the EU gas directive, agreed as long ago as 2009.

It has sent legal final warnings to Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Spain, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Romania and Slovakia saying they have two months to show how they will comply, or face possible cases at the European Court of Justice (ECJ).…

BY DAVID HAWORTH, IN BRUSSELS

‘CELEBRITY’ fragrances have become such a huge industry that even the Pope now has his own eau de cologne – according to Italian perfumer Silvana Casoli, (whose clients include Madonna and the King of Spain), this unique blend reflects the German pontiff’s love of Bavarian forests and their flora and fauna, creating an aura of "peace and tranquility".…

BY KACI RACELMA, IN TIZI OUZOU, ALGERIA

A TERRORIST attack on March 3 targeted the local headquarters of Algeria’s national rural police force ‘El Dark El Watani’ (in the southern Algerian border town of Tamanrasset with a booby-trapped car, leaving 23 people wounded.…

BY SHEENA ROSSITER, IN SÃO PAULO; LEAH GERMAIN AND MJ DESCHAMPS

THE FIFA World Cup never fails to draw huge international crowds to whichever country chosen to play host; boosting tourism and the local economy. However, significant influxes of visitors inevitably strains airport systems – which is why Brazil’s airports are currently undergoing significant expansions to prepare to host the football tournament in 2014, as well as the 2016 summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Union (EU) research project is choosing insecticides for integration in specialist textile products. The Inseplatex project will help make insect-killing "clothing for professional use (forestry, military, volunteer workers, etc.)", maybe identifying special textile insecticides for "critical situations (refugee camps, humanitarian crises, earthquakes, etc.)."…

BY ALAN OSBORN

OLIVE oil growers in the European Union (EU) are currently facing an increasingly frustrating situation: while demand is growing internationally and harvests have been unusually good in recent years, prices are falling at a rapid rate, threatening the livelihood of the thousands of farmers in the main growing countries.…