Search Results for: united nations⊂mit=Search

BY KEITH NUTHALL, EMMA JACKSON and ALAN OSBORN

Although today’s nuclear technology is used primarily to produce electricity, meeting about 14.2% of the world’s demand, the birth of nuclear power, like many technologies, was not intended for civilian use. Rather, it was used to harness a militaristic advantage at the onset of the Second World War.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

VEHICLE sales in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) plunged by up to 45% in the first two months of the year compared to 2008, according to Ford, a remarkable change in fortunes from the years of double-digit growth when the US$3.6 billion sector was one of the fastest growing in the world.…

BY MUNZA MUSHTAQ

As Sri Lanka’s military makes its final thrust against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the country’s government is trying hard to ensure the safety of its only international airport and its passengers, because of an enduring risk of attack from the separatist group.…

BY RUSSELL BERMAN

USA treasury secretary Timothy Geithner has unveiled a sweeping overhaul of financial regulations including additional controls over finance companies, but economic analysts took note of one glaring omission from the Obama administration plan: any mention of the raging debate over fair value accounting rules.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AN INTERNATIONAL Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has been launched in Bonn, Germany, with the support of 76 countries, including its host nation, Spain, Italy, France and Sweden. Britain and the United States have yet to become signatories. IRENA will promote green energy, providing, said a communiqué: "…practical advice and support for both industrialised and developing countries."…

BY MONICA DOBIE

GLOBAL yields of most biofuels crops have been overestimated 100%-150% claims a USA University of Wisconsin/University of Minnesota study. Data from nearly 240 countries suggest yield estimates are overly based on United States and Europe conditions, ignoring climate, soil, technological and other factors impeding other regions’ production.…

By Keith Nuthall

Members of the US congress have been pressed by higher education lobbyists to include the maximum amount of funding possible for American scientific and research agencies from President Obama’s economic stimulus package.

In a united front, six US higher education organisations wrote to influential members of the US House of Representatives and Senate as they negotiated the final text of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.…

BY JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN

PRESIDENT Barack Obama, an intermittent smoker, has been very coy about the status of his nicotine habit, which he has tried to kick several times. So, the question of whether the no-smoking rule at the White House will outlast the Obama presidency, or even if it should, has received no small amount of attention from journalists and in Washington circles.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, LUCY JONES and KEITH NUTHALL

INTRODUCTION

CLOTHING and textile production and trade subsidies are under pressure today, as they have not been for many years. There has been a steady trend towards liberalisation in the sector worldwide, stemming from the abolition of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) in January 2005 and with it, then end of restrictive quotas for imports for the WTO’s 152 member countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Union (EU)-funded research project called SonoDrugs has united universities and high-tech businesses in developing tiny, image-guided medicine capsules which could target medicines to where they are needed in a patient’s body. The aim of the innovation is conveying doses through blood vessels to the centre of an infection or disease, after which the drugs are activated by ultrasound pulses.…