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IT is maybe not a common occurrence for the tobacco industry to find itself on the right side of judicial rulings, but in December, South Africa’s Western Cape High Court ruled that a four-and-a-half month national ban on sales of tobacco products, justified to prevent the spread of Covid-19, had been unconstitutional.…

Traditionally a society of meat lovers, Russians are now developing a taste for vegetable and cereal-based products that reflect the taste and texture of meat – food manufacturers are eager to cater to this trend.

International companies have been entering this segment in Russia, while ambitious local startups are rapidly expanding their production capacities.…

AUSTRALIA has chosen an unorthodox path in transitioning to a low carbon economy. Its centre-right government has advised the country’s clean energy agencies to decrease investment in renewables such as solar and wind and instead increase investment in hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, microgrids and energy efficiency.…

The Covid-19 pandemic is set to drive a near threefold surge in the antiviral coatings market as researchers and developers say they now realise how little they know about effective materials combatting such threats.

The search for more universal antiviral materials “should be continued with even higher intensity”, said Professors Ken Ostrikov and Ziqi Sun from Queensland University of Technology, in Australia, in their September (2020) report, ‘Future antiviral surfaces: Lessons from COVID-19 pandemic’, featured in the publication ‘Sustainable Materials and Technologies’.…

Taiwan’s government seems determined to push ahead with an aggressive stance against tobacco and nicotine products, pushing a control law that would, for instance, ban e-cigarettes, which have never been formally authorised for sale on the island.

The ministry of health and welfare’s Health Promotion Administration (HPA) is pushing amendments to Taiwan’s Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act (THPA), which would also ban flavoured tobacco products, enlarge pictorial warnings to 85% of packaging area and raise the legal age to buy tobacco from 18 to 20.…

A RESEARCH consortium in Canada is developing an open source model to create data-rich digital maps that can improve the operations of autonomous vehicles (AVs). The inspiration behind ‘Open HD Maps’ is to enable the holders of mapping data outside existing proprietary mapping services to contribute their information to a collaborative platform on a profit-sharing basis.…

Countries exporting the most goods and services are also the worst at foreign bribery enforcement, according to the latest report from anti-graft group Transparency International. ‘Exporting Corruption Progress Report 2020: Assessing Enforcement of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention’ finds that most countries assessed (34 out of 47), conducted weak or no enforcement of their foreign bribery laws, in part hindered by a lack of public information on beneficial ownership. …

IT goes without saying that can manufacturers and fillers have to comply with regulatory controls specifying how they make and fill cans, but maybe the biggest compliance challenge for the industry is following the world’s multifarious rules on food labelling. 

Canners and fillers with contracts to supply labelled cans have to take special care given these labelling rules do not just vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, (or even within jurisdictions), these regulations are a very dynamic topic – they change, often. …

THE CHINA Coatings Industry Association on September 14 published a draft standard for the manufacture and sale of antibacterial and anti-viral coatings – a key growth segment during the Covid-19 pandemic. The draft specifies the terms, definitions, requirements, test methods, inspection rules, labelling, marking, packaging and storage of coating products with antibacterial and antiviral properties.…

The Covid-19 crisis has had many negative impacts, and one has been the undermining of legitimate businesses. In countries with strong organised crime traditions, this has meant more opportunities for money launderers to subvert hard-pressed entrepreneurs or take them over, to use their businesses as fronts for cleaning criminal proceeds.  …