Search Results for: United Nations

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MOLDOVAN wine and spirits producers are celebrating a partial lifting of an 18 month ban on their products entering Russia, but the embargo has forced their industry upmarket to survive in alternative western markets. So, once the 15 Moldovan drinks manufacturers given permission to sell into Russia start selling product, prices are expected to be 30% more expensive, according to the US-funded Ukraine Agricultural Marketing Project.…

BY RACHEL JONES, in Caracas

FOLLOWING the late-November OPEC summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez visited Tehran to discuss joint ventures over oil refining and then chuckle with his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, over the weakened US dollar.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE FIRST meeting of the Transatlantic Economic Council, designed to solve regulatory clashes between the United States and the European Union (EU) has struck a preliminary agreement on biofuel standards. EU and US experts have identified which existing standards for pure biofuels are compatible and will by December 31 identify areas for additional progress in 2008.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE UNITED Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) has advised national governments to use their existing market monitoring services to detect unusual trends maybe indicating organised trades in counterfeit goods. The UNECE said this would "entail minimum additional costs and delays in existing market surveillance activities and would be a very effective addition to existing measures to combat counterfeiting".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE TERM ‘preparation’ for chemical compounds such as paints and coatings is to be replaced in European Union (EU) legislation with the term ‘mixtures’ in a raft of legal reforms covering chemical products. These are being proposed by the European Commission to bring EU chemical mixtures legislation in line with the United Nations’ Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals.…

BY MARK ROWE, in London, JULIAN RYALL, in Tokyo, and RACHEL JONES, in Caracas

PERSONAL care products – soaps, cosmetics, lotions and hair products – have always been important consumers of vegetable and animal-based oils and fats. Yet, this is a complex sub-sector of the global oils and fats industry.…

BY MARK ROWE

ONE of the most perfidious environmental legacies of communism in eastern Europe was that of mining pollution. In particular, across a swathe of the Balkans, from Albania to Bosnia & Herzegovina, (the former Yugoslav Republic of) Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo, up to 150 mines have been identified by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as areas of concern.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AN AGREEMENT on mutual access to airports for civil aviation flying between the European Union (EU) and the United Arab Emirates has been approved by the EU Council of Ministers. The European Commission wants to harmonise all such aviation agreements between the EU and non-EU countries.…

BY MARK GODFREY, in Beijing

CHINESE coatings made the headlines for all the wrong reasons this summer. Faulty paint jobs on Chinese exports has however put into sharp relief the quality gap between local and foreign players in China’s paint and coating sector, which has been enjoying unprecedented growth.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE TERM ‘preparation’ for chemical compounds such as textile dyes is to be replaced in European Union (EU) legislation with the term ‘mixtures’ in a raft of legal reforms covering chemical products. These are being proposed by the European Commission to bring EU chemical mixtures legislation in line with the United Nations’ Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals.…