Search Results for: united nations⊂mit=Search

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is pressing European Union (EU) member states to secure a global ban on the use of two pesticide chemicals because of health concerns. Brussels wants endosulfan and trifluralin banned under the United Nations Convention on Long-Range Trans-boundary Air Pollution.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IMPORT duties imposed by the Chinese government on auto-parts, when China-based assembly plants fail to use a minimum proportion of China-manufactured parts, have been declared illegal at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

A disputes panel ruled today that these tariffs broke China’s free trade commitments under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and so should be scrapped.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE HEADS of government of the European Union (EU) have backed a USA-Russia global nuclear non-proliferation initiative, making detailed pledges.

These came in a communiqué issued following the June 19-20 EU summit in Brussels. It said the EU and its member states agreed Moscow and Washington’s Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism "corresponds with [EU] strategy…"

As a result, EU member governments made promises to tighten up nuclear material security including:

*Improving accounting, control and physical protection systems for nuclear and other radioactive materials and substances and enhancing the security of civilian nuclear facilities;

*Boosting their capacity to detect nuclear and other radioactive materials and substances to prevent illicit trafficking;

*Increasing their capability to search for, confiscate, and control unlawfully held nuclear or other radioactive materials and devices; and

*Ensuring their national laws "provide for…appropriate criminal and, if applicable, civil liability for terrorists and those who facilitate acts of nuclear terrorism".…

By Keith Nuthall

WE all know about Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. These social utility websites allow us all to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, exchange messages, post pictures and play silly games – such as throwing a digital sheep at someone or giving them a pixellated hellraiser cocktail.…

BY MARK ROWE

ONE of the first responses to concerns about climate change involved the search to sequester carbon, a component of the major greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. Increasingly, efforts are focussing on how to deal with another greenhouse gas, methane.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD, in Caracas

LATIN AMERICA has long been notorious for its high levels of corruption, especially through money laundering, bribery and the illicit drug trade. And although the recent years of relative stability and democratisation in the region have brought economic progress, this has also widened the opportunities for fraudulent activities and fuelled an increasing sophistication by which they are performed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MAJOR concerns have been raised about a draft European Union (EU) plan to attract highly qualified immigrants because of its ability to fuel an intense brain drain from Africa.

A hearing was staged last week in Brussels (June 26) at the European Parliament on the ‘blue card’ proposals now being designed by the European Commission, the EU’s executive body.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SINCE the September 11 attacks, the control of terrorist financing has been an international policing priority. But businesses also need to be aware of the risks. Keith Nuthall reports.

TERRORISM may be an exceptional crime, but the money required to stage violent attacks on the public is – ultimately – just money.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AMERICAN and European Union (EU) scientists will intensify joint development of alternative cosmetics tests that replace experiments using animals. A United States-European Union summit in Slovenia agreed the US Food and Drug Administration and European Commission would "further their cooperation in the peer review of unvalidated alternative methods" (including products considered medicines in America and cosmetics in the EU).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

NEW biofuels could be created as a result of a trans-Atlantic scientific workshop of specialists tasked with developing new biofuel technologies being created by a United States-European Union summit in Slovenia. Its work will include using plant cell walls in bio-refining and new plant oils as biofuel feedstocks, being coordinated by the EU-US Task-Force on Biotechnology Research.…