Search Results for: cars

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has frozen its partnership and cooperation negotiations with Russia over the Georgia conflict, just three months after the talks were launched following long delays. An emergency meeting of the EU Council of Ministers has ordered no meetings will take place with Moscow on the agreement until its "troops have withdrawn to the positions held prior to 7 August", prior to its short war with Georgia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WINDSHIELDS are not such something to look through, say European scientists: they also act as loud speakers, attracting and magnifying noise created by an auto, reflecting the racket back at drivers and passengers alike. This fact has made researchers in the European Union (EU)-funded InMAR (‘Intelligent Materials for Active Noise Reduction’) project consider how to change the materials making windshields, so that they absorb noise rather than amplify it.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has effectively ordered that day time running lights be fitted to all new makes of motor vehicles from 2011. In a move that could spark opposition from the UK government on energy conservation grounds, the Commission has used its authority to write UN vehicle regulations into European Union (EU) law to make the change.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Parliament’s industry committee is pushing for auto manufacturers to be given an additional three years to hit the proposed European Union (EU)-wide 120g/km ceiling for carbon dioxide emissions (CO2). The European Commission has proposed the industry should comply with this maximum by 2012, albeit with some built in flexibilities to accommodate concerns amongst manufacturers of larger cars.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

JULY’S mid-winter political season in Australia’s New South Wales (NSW) has been marked by the approval of tougher smoking laws by the state’s parliament in Sydney. They impose new smoking restrictions and penalties, part of the NSW government’s attempt to reduce children’s exposure to cigarettes, both lit and unlit.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE CHINESE government launched unprecedented traffic restrictions in Beijing to tame the city’s notorious air pollution ahead of August’s Olympic Games. It has banned half of the city’s 3.3 million cars from its streets for two months from July 20.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

AS the price of petroleum climbs increasingly makes alternative energy sources such as biofuels sound increasingly attractive to many countries that had dismissed them in the past, Brazil, the largest consumer of ethanol in the world with over 30 years of experience developing their biofuels industry, has many lessons to offer.…

BY DOMINIQUE PATTON

CHINESE government authorities are taking extreme measures to reduce the city’s infamous air pollution ahead of the summer Olympic Games.

A World Bank report in 2004 ranked Beijing the 13th most polluted city in the world, with an average air quality reading of 89 PM10, well above the guideline level of 50 PM10 (micrograms of inhalable particulate matter per cubic metre).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MERCEDES-BENZ can now push ahead with building a new manufacturing plant in Hungary, having secured permission from the European Commission to receive Euro 111.5 million in cash and tax breaks from the Hungarian government. The money will help Mercedes-Benz Hungary meet the Euro 800 million cost of building a plant in Kecskemét, the Dél-Alföld region.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

OIL-REFINING and transport industries operating within the European Union (EU) will be under further pressure to produce cleaner fuels and less polluting vehicles through a new air quality directive setting strict limits for ultra-fine PM 2.5 particulate matter in air.…