Search Results for: Turkey

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has bit the bullet and drawn up plans to lend US$250 million to help build the planned key Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil and gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SHIPBREAKING, a ready source of scrap steel, is one of the most dangerous occupations in the world. What is more, agreed a recent meeting of experts from the International Metalworkers Federation, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and others, it need not be so deadly.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) energy ministers have agreed new rules for applying value added tax to cross-border gas supplies that will reduce confusion created by increasing cross-border trading in energy supplies. Now, traders re-selling supplies who are not established in the same country as the supplier will pay VAT through an obligatory reverse charge system.…

Keith Nuthall
TAX collectors are raiding the developed world’s economies for a diminishing slice of national incomes according to a Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study. It says rich country public revenues commanded a smaller proportion of GDP on average last year, compared with 2001 (40.5 and 41 per cent respectively).…

BY MARK ROWE
UZBEKISTAN has been at the forefront of international AML efforts in the central Asia region, a spokesman for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) told the Money Laundering Bulletin. Uzbekistan has the most advanced AML legislation and apparatus of all the former Soviet Central Asia and has signed more than 20 bilateral and multilateral agreements on cooperation in fighting illicit drug trafficking with its Central Asian neighbours, as well as with Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and Turkey, according to the International Money Laundering Information Network (IMOLIN), (whose contributing members include the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering, the United Nations and the World Customs Organisation).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A UNITED Nations (UN) Convention against Transnational Organised Crime has come into force, imposing a duty on ratifying countries to outlaw membership of an organised criminal group, which it defines legally. So far, said the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 48 countries have ratified it, including Monaco, Nigeria, Serbia & Montenegro, Peru, Spain, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Canada, Philippines, Tajikistan, Albania, France, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey, China, Norway and Afghanistan.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A MIDDLE East conference of the Office International des Épizooties, the world animal health organisation, has been staged to improve the region’s weak animal health controls. There was concern at the meeting, in Istanbul, Turkey, that Middle East countries do not have emergency plans to deal with outbreaks of transmissible animal diseases, a potential barrier to trade and risk to countries importing their livestock and meat.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ENHANCED powers, responsibilities and resources are being proposed for the new European Maritime Safety Agency to enable it to fight tanker pollution. The European Commission has proposed that it should buy or lease specialist anti-pollution vessels. It also wants its work expanded to cover maritime security and seafarer training.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A MIDDLE East conference of the Office International des Épizooties, the world animal health organisation, has been staged to improve the region’s weak animal health controls. There was concern at the meeting, in Istanbul, Turkey, that Middle East countries do not have emergency plans to deal with outbreaks of transmissible animal diseases or detection systems for BSE.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE RUSSIAN government has threatened barring Turkish construction companies from operating in Russia unless Ankara reverses its refusal to buy gas via Gazprom’s US$3 billion Blue Stream pipeline. Ankara cut imports of Russian gas through the pipeline in a payment dispute.…