Search Results for: World Trade Organisation

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SECRETARIAT for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has released a report advising nurseries and customs officers about the world’s illegal trade in wild rare plants; the World Wildlife Fund says annual volumes are in the 100,000’s even millions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation has produced a Tobacco Atlas, produced with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, USA. It provides statistics such as the differences between countries and genders regarding consumption, the conduct of the tobacco companies, investments by tobacco industry, the costs of tobacco use, illicit trade and litigation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT managers across the European Union can expect changes to their national workplace data protection regulations because of a wide-ranging and detailed public consultation launched by the European Commission.

Brussels has already concluded that there is a need to harmonise the widely divergent rules and practices amongst Member States, so legislation will inevitably be tabled.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is facing a mass attack on its sugar export subsidies at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). They have been formally challenged by both Australia and Brazil, with the Ivory Coast, Congo, Madagascar, Columbia, Canada, Kenya, Barbados, India, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Jamaica, Swaziland, Fiji, Guyana and Mauritius expected to line up behind them in support.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GENERAL Assembly of the World Intellectual Property Organisation has streamlined and simplified the international patent application filing system as operated under its Patent Cooperation Treaty. Delegates agreed to integrate two key processes, namely an international search looking for existing patents that might throw doubt on the uniqueness of an invention and an examination of the application itself, checking whether it is novel, involves an inventive step and can be exploited industrially.…

BY MARK ROWE
A TEAM of scientists has visited Bosnia and Herzegovina amidst concerns that 12 areas of the country were contaminated with harmful radiation after being targeted by ordnance containing depleted uranium (DU) during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A UNIFORM and streamlined system on the monitoring of illicit drug precursors for trade between EU Member States has been proposed by the European Commission. Brussels wants rules on licensing, customer declarations, labelling and monitoring procedures written as an EU Regulation, which national governments must implement to the letter.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission today (Tuesday) announced proposed new legislation to bring in compulsory minimum insurance requirements for all air carriers and aircraft operators flying within, into, out of or overflying the European Union. It is also considering the merits of creating a mutual fund in the probable event that governments decided against maintaining the current state guarantees after the end of October this year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has published a list of exported American wool products that could be saddled with protective duties of up to 100 per cent, because of a World Trade Organisation ruling allowing Brussels to retaliate against the US’s use of foreign trade corporations to give its exporters illegal tax breaks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU ministers are expected next month (October) to approve a textiles trade deal struck between Brazil and the European Commission. It removes quota restrictions on the amount of clothing that Brazil can export to the EU. Brazil will freeze its tariff levels on EU clothing exports and not introduce new non-tariff trade barriers for the sector.…