Search Results for: united nations⊂mit=Search

BY BILL CORCORAN, in Johannesburg

SOUTH African booksellers recorded healthy sales figures for the month of December with many of the festive season’s bestsellers emanating from the local market.

Leading booksellers Exclusive Books, which has 43 stores nationwide, indicated that sales on last year had increased steadily Christmas period, although the company still believed the market had yet to spike.…

BY BILL CORCORAN, in South Africa

SOUTH Africa is in a race against time to ensure the country’s

burgeoning economy is not crippled by fuel shortages, forcing its oil and gas companies to innovate to ensure security of supply, notably from neighbouring countries.…

BY MARK ROWE

RUSSIA has engaged in a series of political and economic spats with its former Soviet satellites and the European Union (EU) in the first years of the 21st century. And while stand-offs over Belarus sugar and Moldovan wine might raise eyebrows in the West, disputes over the vast energy resources in Russia and its Central Asian neighbours carry an altogether darker shade, mainly because Russia supplies 25% of the EU’s oil and 25% of its gas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A UNITED Nations Environment Programme specialist has warned the European Parliament of concerns that water shortages are preventing nuclear plant operators from obtaining sufficient supplies to cool their reactors. UNEP’s Kaveh Zahedi told the European Parliament climate change committee that at least 24 nuclear plants in the south-eastern USA face shutting down or limiting operations over droughts and that last year in Italy, low water levels on the River Po sparked proposals to suspend operations at nearby plants.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

The European Court of Justice (Grand Chamber) has rejected a request by the UK for the annulment of an EU regulation setting out standards for the security features, including bio-metrics, to be carried on passports and other travel documents in the EU.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Kuwait City and Beirut

THE AUTO sector and market of the Middle East’s Gulf region experienced yet another boom year in 2007 on the back of high oil prices, a rising population and strong economic growth. But although sales were uniformly high among the six Gulf Arab states that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Kuwait had a noticeably slower year, particularly for American and European brands.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Tripoli and Beirut

THE OPENING up of Libya’s economy could not have come at a better time for international oil companies, which have been beset in recent years by dwindling easily accessible oil reserves, tighter controls over exploration rights and extraction, and heightened security concerns.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EVERY decade or so comes a technology that is so new, comprehensive, interesting, and damned useful, that it changes the way that we learn, have fun and do business. Think commercial air travel, the mobile phone and the Internet…..these…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Kuwait

THE MARKET for fake car parts in the Middle East is rising at an alarming pace, now accounting for an estimated 30% of the region’s US$11 billion parts sector. In a recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report, the Middle East was highlighted as a central market in the US$16 billion global trade in fake auto parts, which is growing at an estimated 9-11% a year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have agreed in principle that only fire-safe cigarettes, that stop burning if they are not being smoked, be sold in the EU. Ministers have given the green light to the European Commission to draft a technical standard for all member states, with formal approval being secured in 2008, and introduction of the rule probably coming by 2010.…