Search Results for: japan

BY KEITH NUTHALL
JAPANESE car manufacturers have agreed to limit the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in vehicles – emitted by paint, vinyl and other materials that cause the distinctive ‘new car smell’ – to levels allowed in homes. The Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association will apply the new standards from vehicles manufactured in 2007, albeit initially only to new model cars made and sold in Japan.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations’ International Seabed Authority has delayed agreement of new regulations governing how metal ore mining companies would explore and exploit deep seawaters for hauls such as polymetallic sulphide nodules and cobalt-rich crusts. These mineral resources are rich in copper, iron, zinc, silver, gold and cobalt; sulphides are found around volcanic areas and crusts on oceanic ridges.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
JAPANESE car manufacturers have agreed to limit the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in vehicles – that cause the distinctive ‘new car smell’ – to levels allowed in homes. The Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association will apply the new standards from vehicles manufactured in 2007, albeit initially only to new model cars both made and sold in Japan.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A REPORT written for the European Commission before Hurricane Katrina could be something of a harbinger of doom for reinsurance, warning that a major disaster could put unbearable pressure on operators.

Written by consultants IMCC for the Commission’s competition directorate general, it said the reinsurance sector withstood the September 11 attacks “partly due to a lack of other disasters in the years previously”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE STEEP decline in sales of European Union (EU) finished leather to its number one market, the United States, has been highlighted by a comprehensive report on the global leather (and textile) market written for the European Commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DESPITE the increase in global prices for coal since 2003, European Union (EU) coal producing countries still need to restructure their industries, a detailed European Commission survey has noted. Highlighting the increase in spot price for South African steam coal from US$36 in early 2003 to US$74 at the end of 2004, the report cited higher freight rates for Australian coal caused by rising demand in China and solid demand in Japan and South Korea, enabling “traditional suppliers” to the Atlantic market to raise their prices.…

BY MARK ROWE
ON Boxing Day 2004, as the shockwaves from the tsunami rolled out across the Indian Ocean, one very important procedure quietly went according to plan. Detectors at the Indira Gandhi Kalpakkam power station on India’s east coast sensed the rising water levels and automatically shut the plant down.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations’ International Seabed Authority has postponed agreement of new regulations governing how mining companies would explore and exploit deep seawaters for hauls such as polymetallic sulphide nodules and cobalt-rich crusts. These mineral resources are rich in copper, iron, zinc, silver, gold and cobalt, with the sulphides being found around volcanic areas and the crusts on oceanic ridges.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
EARTHQUAKE insurance is an odd business in that the human scale of a disaster is sometimes wildly in excess of the economic losses and the latter in turn often far exceed the level of cover and therefore claims.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A COMPREHENSIVE study on the competitiveness of the European Union (EU) cosmetics industry is being ordered by the European Commission, comparing the EU against the USA, Japan and China. Researchers will gather and analyse data on both the economic and industrial strengths of the EU cosmetics “to get a comprehensible comparative description of the structure of this sector”, said a Commission note.…