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BY MONICA DOBIE
AN ENVIRONMENTAL organisation has blamed American businesses for dodging safe, but costly recycling methods for their used computer equipment by shipping them to developing countries in an insincere show of philanthropy, which actually causes severe environmental damage.

A report called ‘The Digital Dump: Exporting Reuse and Abuse to Africa,’ written by the Seattle-based Basel Action Network, says the bulk of used computer equipment sent from the United States to developing countries for use in homes, schools and businesses is often neither usable nor repairable.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNLIKELY prospect of China – one of the world’s least environment-friendly countries – running a green Olympics has come closer to reality through an agreement with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). It has struck a deal with the Beijing Organising Committee for the (2008) summer games (BOCOG), involving the UN agency boosting public awareness of air, water and noise pollution plans focusing on transport, landscaping and waste disposal.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Security Council has transferred more than US$2 million of residual funds from the now defunct Iraq Oil-for-Food fund to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to settle the Iraqi government’s remaining arrears with the UN agency.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations General Assembly has voted to create a new remembrance day in November for road traffic victims, who are regularly more numerous than deaths caused by wars or civil strife. Indeed, 1.2 million people are killed annually in road accidents, says the World Health Organisation (WHO), more than the population of Estonia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A UNITED Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal, Canada, has agreed the final rulebook for the Kyoto Protocol, eight years after the treaty was agreed. Final differences have been ironed regarding accounting for emissions, CO2 allowances based on forests, soils and other natural resources and on data systems.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INTERNATIONAL alliance of environmental and conservation organisations is to develop a bird flu early warning system, alerting countries, and even communities, of a looming risk posed by migrating wild birds that may carry the disease. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), Wetlands International, Birdlife International and the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation are planning to help the scheme.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States has requested formal talks at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) with China, which it accuses of depressing American markets with imports of certain circular welded non-alloy steel pipe. This, Washington claims in a memorandum to the WTO, has caused “market disruption to US domestic producers”.…

BY WESLEY GIBBINGS
THE RELATIONSHIP between Caribbean people and tobacco could have at one time been described as virtually umbilical, with important outward feeders to Europe and other parts of the world. Tobago, the smaller unit of the twin-island state of Trinidad & Tobago, bears the name of the instrument used by native Amerindians 500 years ago to smoke Burly blends.…

BY MARK ROWE
EVER wondered what happens to your car’s tyres when they are replaced? They may have done 20,000 miles or so on the road, but for many their working life has barely begun. Thanks to the European Union’s End Of Life Vehicles Directive (2000/53/EC), landfills of whole tyres have been banned this year, with shredded tyres to follow in 2006.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CRITICS of European political institutions have sometimes been unkind about the Council of Europe, which has been accused of being a powerless talking shop. And although the Council lacks the power to fine and cajole member governments enjoyed by the European Union (EU) – from which it is completely independent – it has some important roles.…