Search Results for: United Nations

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTERNATIONAL technical guidelines promoting the safe disposal of plastic wastes have been issued, following a United Nations Environment Programme backed meeting in Geneva. Representatives from more than 100 governments focused especially on the problems caused by developing countries lacking the necessary legislation and facilities to cope with the ongoing dramatic growth in the quantity of plastic their waste disposal organisations have to deal with.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations’ general assembly has overwhelmingly voted to urge countries to support the International Atomic Energy Agency, (IAEA), in preventing acts of terrorism committed with nuclear and other radioactive materials. Delegates voted 150 in favour, with North Korea voting against and the Ivory Coast and Laos abstaining.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IRAQ’S petroleum revenues are surging again through the UN’s so-called oil-for-food programme, six months after a row over the future of the scheme had led to exports being suspended. As the scheme’s 11th phase started this month, (December), during the week ending December 7, Baghdad earned an estimated Euro110 million in revenue; the previous week, Iraq had earned Euro 334 million.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A HOLISTIC global campaign against HIV/AIDS has been agreed by Rome-based UN agencies: the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the International Fund for Agriculture Development and the World Food Programme. The trio will work to minimise the effect on food production of AIDS epidemics in countries where the disease is particularly widespread, namely Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EU Council of Ministers has, as expected, granted political approval to a hastily drawn-up proposed regulation on boosting civil aviation security, based on rules written in Document 30 of the European Civil Aviation Conference, Europe’s aviation policy development body.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
AMERICAN online book retailers are likely to be upset by the decision of the European Union Council of Ministers (finance) to approve its proposed new VAT requirement for books downloaded from the Internet. The system allows for online EU exporters to sell their goods without charging sales tax, but penalises websites based in the United States, (or other third countries), selling to consumers in the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE AGREEMENT of a Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, (UNESCO), may not help museums gain access to treasures from shipwrecks and sunken buildings, specialists in the UK have claimed.…

BY MIKE FOX
ENVIRONMENT officials and ministers from more than one hundred countries meeting at a United Nations conference in Montreal have renewed their commitment to trying to protect the world’s oceans from land-based pollution.

They framed a comprehensive communiqué, after hearing from an environmental body representing more than 400 local governments, which outlined how its members can play a major role in protecting the oceans.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INCREASING political pressure is being applied on eastern European governments to undertake root-and-branch reforms to promote energy effieciency and environmental performance within their utilities and industries, including the raising of gas and oil prices.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe recently addressed the issue, with its Committee on Sustainable Energy and the Committee on Environmental Policy agreeing to produce guidelines on price reforms for the region.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE TRAFFICKING of endangered species, and other environmental crimes such as smuggling pollutants, is a billion dollar business says the Milan-based United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, (UNICRI), which has published a study on these modern scourges.…