Search Results for: Switzerland

BY EUGENE VOROTNIKOV

RUSSIAN businesses could return to widespread borrowing from criminal sources in any repeat of the 2008-09 recession and credit crunch, the country’s financial watchdog has warned as continuing global turmoil hits interbank lending.

"We are facing a situation where criminal capital is increasingly being used for lending to business, thereby replacing the legal banking sector," said Yury Chikhanchin, head of the federal financial monitoring Service, Rosfinmonitoring.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

LITTLE more excites the international auto industry more than the search for an alternative to fossil fuels, and an American company is now looking seriously into the idea of using a heavy element thorium to generate locomotive power.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A CONSULTANTS report for the European Commission on the impact of biofuel expansion has warned that a reliance on bioethanol could damage the European Union’s (EU) fossil fuels security of supply.

Written by experts from Wood Mackenzie, Ricardo and Celeres, the paper – just released by Brussels – says that with bioethanol sources focused on Brazil and a few other countries, "there is a risk of a high degree of reliance on few sources of ethanol supply."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

PERSONALISED medicines are one of those innovations that are so patently a good idea, it is almost inconceivable that they will not be the norm in 10 or 20 years’ time. Taking pharmaceuticals without checking your molecular make up for side-effect risks will probably be seen as dumb, or worse, the subject of negligence claims.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Union (EU) research project is trying to create consensus over scientific principles affecting complimentary and alternative medicine (CAM), sufficiently robust to inspire EU regulation. The CAMbrella project involves academics from Germany, Britain, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, Norway, Romania, Spain, France, Denmark, Austria and Sweden, ending December 2012.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

FEW transatlantic agreements have given rise to more friction and animosity than the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP) set up by the US Treasury in 2001 shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and in direct response to them.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

AS one of the final stages in the converting process, it is important that the coating and laminating of raw materials goes off without a hitch to produce the best possible end product for paper, plastic and textile packagers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

HIGH sugar prices and tight supplies are a constant worry for confectionery manufacturers this year, and the European Union (EU) has been trying to keep these problems under control. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has estimated that global prices rose 81.4% from last July (2010) to this January (2011) and the EU has taken action.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

POP science reports have been raving about how towels, clothes and sheets impregnated with tiny nanoparticles can kill germs and wipe out body odour. A good example is nano-socks, containing nano-silver, which apparently stop feet smelling, no matter how sweaty.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

FORMAL negotiations for a linkage between the European Union (EU) and Swiss carbon emissions trading systems (ETS) began in March after some three years of exploratory discussions. Both sides could gain significantly from a successful outcome. The Swiss would win access to a considerably larger and more liquid European emissions market than they can use at present, bringing greater flexibility in helping them to meet their emissions targets.…