Search Results for: World Trade Organisation

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DIFFERENTIAL pricing in world pharmaceutical markets has been backed by a joint workshop involving the World Trade Organisation, the World Health Organisation, the Global Health Council and its national host, Norway.

A report released from the meeting has born out a general consensus reached by participants that “differential pricing could, and should, play an important role in ensuring access to existing essential drugs at affordable prices, especially in poor countries, while allowing the patent system to continue to play its role of providing incentives for research and development into new drugs.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation is to target women’s exposure to passive smoking because of male smokers as part of its long-standing campaign against tobacco consumption. In a new monograph, it has called for bans on smoking in public places and advertising, pointing out that while worldwide 48 per cent of men smoke, the figure is just 12 per cent for women.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has agreed to allow yet another Member State to stretch the agreement underlying the new common market organisation in wine, by approving a large national handout for compulsory distillation. In a move that it likely to dismay the European Commission, ministers agreed to allow France to grant exceptional national aid to producers for distillation of 1.5 million hectolitres of wine.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITISH schools have featured in an international study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which highlighted good practice examples of how sensitive building design can help education.

The report, Designs for Learning: 55 Exemplary Educational Facilities, looked at how technological change in learning techniques – such as the Internet – and in environmental requirements – such as energy efficiency – has been incorporated in new schools, universities and colleges.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SOUTH Korea has announced that its half of the 2002 World Cup finals will be free from “tobacco sales, consumption, promotion and sponsorship.” The tough line on smoking in and around matches has been welcomed by both the World Health Organisation and EU health Commissioner David Byrne, who said: “This decision clearly puts tobacco products offside the World Cup.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CRIMINALS are still fleecing the European Union’s budget of hundreds-of-millions of Euro, according to the latest European Commission fraud report. But Brussels is refusing to throw in the towel, unveiling more anti-fraud proposals, Keith Nuthall reports.

THE ANNUAL report on the Protection of the Communities’ (EU’s) Financial Interests and the Fight Against Fraud always seems to have been misnamed, in that it usually focuses on how much money the European Union has been losing to fraudsters, rather than saving.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has greeted with anger the decision by the European Parliament to reject a proposed directive on harmonising financial procedures for takeover bids that take place within the European Union.

The proposal was formally tabled six years ago and has been the centre of intense debate, leading to what was supposed to be a final compromise, struck between the parliament and the EU Council of Ministers, meeting in a conciliation committee.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE European Union’s Council of Ministers has failed to agree the latest proposals from the European Commission to tighten Europe’s cosmetics animal testing regulations, while abiding by free trade commitments at the World Trade Organisation. Ministers have referred the proposal to the Council’s permanent representatives committee of officials, who have been asked to draw up an alternative compromise.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE USA has accepted its loss of an appeal at the World Trade Organisation against a disputes panel ruling that Washington had broken WTO rules when erecting safeguard duties against lamb imports from New Zealand and Australia. American diplomats said their government needed “a reasonable period of time” for implementation.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SWEDEN has been told by the European Commission to end its favourable tax treatment of beer compared to wine or face legal action at the European Court of Justice.

Under the Swedish alcohol tax regime, wine in the 8.5 per cent to 15 per cent abv band bears tax at about four times the rate for beer in the three per cent to five per cent range, even though it has only three times as much alcohol.…