Search Results for: World Trade Organisation

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been asked to negotiate away restrictions maintained by European Union (EU) Member States that prevent non-EU companies from providing “services incidental to energy distribution” within the EU. The call has come from countries involved in the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) three years old services talks, which were rolled into the WTO’s general Doha Development Round at its Qatar summit last year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank is lending US$30 million to Brazilian footwear producer Sao Paulo Alpargatas S.A. (SPASA), to finance its on-going investment programme, modernising production facilities and increasing capacity. The company has been identified by the IFC as a company that would effectively use such finance; since 1997, it has improved performance and market position by upgrading product quality and lowering costs, notably through new manufacturing technologies and relocating production facilities to the impoverished north-east of Brazil, an area which the World Bank wants to help develop.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE HIGH risk of nurses worldwide becoming victims of violence has sparked four international organisations into drawing up guidelines advising managers on how to reduce the exposure of their staff to physical attack or threats.

These draft Framework Guidelines for addressing Workplace Violence in the Health Sector are being produced by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the World Health Organisation (WHO), Public Services International (PSI) and the International Council of Nurses (ICN).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A RESTRICTED trade in cloth from wool culled from captured wild vicuna in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile has been approved by a conference of parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A RESTRICTED trade in wool from captured wild vicuna in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile has been approved by a conference of parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

The United Nations (UN) convention’s members agreed in Santiago, Chile, to lift a ban in trading these small beasts “for the purpose of allowing international trade in wool sheared from live animals…bearing the label vicuna Argentina, Bolivia or Chile.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AS the bill for cleaning up after the Prestige disaster grows larger and larger, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has committed itself to redoubling efforts to raise the standard of shipping amongst its developed country members.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A LONG-LIST of nine names was being considered this month (January) by the World Health Organisation as potential successors to Gro Harlem Brundtland as director general next year. Dr Brundtland has conducted a relentless campaign against smoking and the organisation may be difficult to elect a similar anti-tobacco crusader given the differences she has had with the US.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ORGANISATION for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has launched a review of its guidelines on corporate governance, to assess how they might be reformed in the light of the accounting scandals that have dogged the US recently.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union is to remove all textile import quotas applied to Brazil under a

Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two sides this month (November). In return, Brazil will respect maximum tariff levels, refrain from applying non-tariff barriers to EU exports, and discontinue the application of an additional tax on textile and clothing imports.…

BY PHILIP FINE, in Montreal, Canada

THE EFFECTS of September 11 have left their mark on the relationship between air traffic control national service providers (ANSPs) and their customers. The economic fall-out from the terrorist attacks now defines much of the dialogue between ANSPs, airlines and airports.…