Search Results for: united nations

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Food & Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has warned that the number of domesticated livestock breeds worldwide is declining sharply, with 1,350 of the roughly 6,300 FAO registered breeds threatened by extinction or already extinct. The problem has been discussed by a special FAO meeting of national coordinators on animal genetic resources, which is developing a global plan to halt their disappearance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN pharmaceutical companies Hoffmann-La Roche, BASF and Rhône-Poulenc are being supported by the International Chamber of Commerce in a US Supreme Court case that could make United States courts de facto global anti-trust regulators, even in cases with a negligible USA impact.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) and 16 Caribbean countries have launched negotiations to strike a trade deal by 2008, that should boost Jamaican bauxite exports into Europe. The mineral is already the eastern Caribbean’s largest non-food export to the EU, (eight per cent of all the region’s foreign sales being aluminium-related products – worth around Euro 223 million in 2003).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation is to be named as the coordinator of a global plan to cut road deaths from their current level 1.2 million. The United Nations general assembly is discussing how it can work with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank and relevant national ministries to reduce the number of such tragedies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has thrown down the gauntlet over the agreement between the European Union (EU) and the United States over transferring airline passenger data to US authorities, voting to challenge the deal at the European Court of Justice (ECJ).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has decided to challenge at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) the agreement between the European Union (EU) and the United States over transferring airline passenger data to US authorities. MEPs think the data transfer deal breaks the EU’s data protection directive, and so the European Commission was wrong to agree its terms without parliamentary approval.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
CANADA’S largest producer of chrysotile asbestos fibres, LAB Chrysotile, has announced it will indefinitely shut one of its two mines near Thetford Mines, Quebec, this November. The company has blamed the closure of its Black Lake mine, which will result in 450 job losses, on a high Canadian dollar in comparison to the US dollar and tough international competition.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GERMANY is at the centre of a lengthy critique of global restrictions on the telecommunications sector issued by the United States Trade Representative (USTR), which it warns may form the basis future World Trade Organisation disputes cases. Germany has been criticised regarding access to leased lines and high mobile termination rates, in particular, with the USTR attacking the German telecom regulator RegTP’s “lack of authority to impose certain measures (ie.,…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) has ruled that elements of Canada’s collective what marketing systems break its rules, taking some shine off Ottawa’s earlier claims of an oncoming victory in the dispute brought by the United States. A WTO disputes settlement panel has now told Canada to reform the Canada Grain Act, Canada Grain Regulations, and the Canada Transportation Act, to comply with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).…

BY MONICA DOBIE
SCIENTISTS have discovered that proteins from a harmless microorganism can reduce the presence of campylobacter and other pathogenic bacteria in poultry intestines by 99.9 per cent. In small trials, the proteins, called bacteriocins, almost wiped out campylobacter, reducing their presence to a millionth when fed to chickens.…