Search Results for: United Nations

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) just loves setting up new agencies and statutory bodies. If there is a problem, then usually agreement can be struck at the European Parliament and EU Council of Ministers on creating a body of experts to deal with it.…

BY MARK GODFREY

COMMUNIST Party cadres from around China are being bussed out to Asuwei landfill in Beijing’s Changping suburb to view a showcase for how China wants to manage waste in the future. As China urbanises, its solid waste output has been climbing by 9% a year, said Rasmus Reinvag, co-author of a recent China environmental sector report by the WWF conservation group and Norwegian-government owned development group Innovation Norway.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, in London; RUSSELL BERMAN, in Washington DC; JULIAN RYALL, in Tokyo; RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, in New Delhi; BY WANG FANGQING, in Shanghai; EMMA JACKSON, in Ottawa; KARRYN MILLER; and KEITH NUTHALL

THE AUTOMOBILE sector maybe one of the most globally integrated manufacturing industries on the planet, but national governments (or continental bodies in Europe) still hold sway regarding regulation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THERE has been an increase in the proportion of counterfeit shoes seized in Europe made in China – up to 93.4% of all seizures in 2008 – the European Commission has revealed. This was up from 79.6% the previous year.…

BY PHILIPPA JONES, in Paris; LEE ADENDORFF, in Lucca, Italy; KARRYN MILLER, in Tokyo; and LUCY JONES, in Dallas

IT almost seems commonsense to say that an industry providing such a human product as clothing has to take account of cultural sensibilities in target markets.…

BY MARK ROWE

SINGAPORE enjoys an international reputation for rigour when it comes to implementing and adhering to industry standards, and its paint sector is no exception. This approach is being applied, or has already been applied, to all the key major international regulations, including the European Union’s (EU) VOC (volatile organic compounds) directive 2004/42/EC, International Maritime Organisation (IMO) coatings rules, the UN’s Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals, and the EU chemical control system REACH.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THERE is a sense, in the rivers of documents pouring from international talks to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a new global warming treaty in Copenhagen this December that the chickens are really coming home to roost.

For the first time – at July’s G8 summit in Italy – there was a common near-universal declaration that humankind has been messing up the climate and has to stop filling the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.…

By Alan Osborn

A Swiss university has launched a course to bring modern business skills to the elite public servants of tomorrow – the people who run the key international organisations and agencies that increasingly shape the modern world. The International Organisations Master of Business Administration (IOMBA) programme has been set up by the University of Geneva to correct what the school sees as a major deficiency at present – the lack of proper managerial skills among those who staff these global bodies.…

BY ANDREW CAVE

Food commodity prices are seldom out of the news nowadays, due to a mushrooming global population, the food-for-fuel controversy, an increasing focus on sustainability and the continued growth of the organic sector. However, beyond the generality of crop prices spiralling to new highs in 2007 and 2008 and then plummeting – in some cases – back to where they were before the boom, the picture is far from uniform.…

BY JAMES FULLER

SMALL island states are always vulnerable in energy sustainability terms, but the growth in renewable energy technologies is giving them a better shot at security of supply. The Caribbean is a case in point, where green energy technologies are being explored across the region.…