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BY KEITH NUTHALL
DETAILED and comprehensive regulations have been proposed for approval by European Union (EU) ministers, harmonising how EU car-makers design models to ward off head-on and lateral collisions. The rules would enshrine in EU law technical guidelines drawn up by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), which cover issues such as air bag operation, child restraints, steering wheel position and crash test dummies, whose performance has recently been improved by an international project.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is pressing the United States to further delay a rule insisting that passports used in its visa-waiving programme contain biometric features. Following EU calls, Congress delayed its introduction until next October, but the European Commission now wants this postponed until 2006, saying some member states cannot meet the deadline.…

Keith Nuthall
NORWAY, Iceland and Liechtenstein want the European Union (EU) to include their air carriers in any open skies deals struck, especially with the United States. If these rights are denied to them, these countries said it would “risk fragmentation of the European internal market”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CALLS have been made a the United Nations to renegotiate the Kyoto Protocol to bind advanced developing countries by commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The UN second committee (economic and financial) was warned that otherwise their economic growth would undermine developed world efforts to control emissions, with gases reaching “dangerous levels” by 2015.…

Keith Nuthall
THE UNITED States and the European Union (EU) are making real progress towards concluding a comprehensive wine and spirits agreement, Brussels’ outgoing agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler has told the EU Council of Ministers. The Austrian said that since talks in the long running negotiations had been resumed last month (on wine), the European Commission and the US government have been striving to secure a preliminary deal, upon which a final agreement could be built.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GOVERNMENT of the traditional southern African kingdom of Swaziland is taking proactive steps to promote traditional cooking in a country that is developing health problems through its adoption of modern processed foods. The United Nations (UN) Food & Agriculture Organisation has reported rises in hypertension and sugar diabetes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States International Trade Commission (ITC) has been sharply criticised by a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) panel ruling on a sunset review of countervailing and anti-dumping duties on Canadian corrosion resistant steel exports. Washington’s conclusion that this American steel sub-sector required continued protection because it was in a “weakened state” considering its profits, “is unsupported by substantial evidence and not in accordance with law”, said the panel.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has warned against rich countries erecting “a plethora of protectionist non-tariff barriers” to defend their textile industries after January’s quota abolition. Although this UN agency accepts the need for smaller developing countries facing the full onslaught of Chinese competition to have “special adjustment measures” such as rules of origin and “improved preferential access”, it wants this assistance limited.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
AMERICAN scientists have developed the first genetic map of a cow, a breakthrough they claim will help reduce animal disease and improve the nutrition and quality of beef products. The research, performed at the Baylor College of Medicine’s Human Genome Sequencing Centre in Houston, Texas, is part of a US$53 million global project to sequence the genome of different breeds of cattle.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is piloting the Internet dissemination of market data to Cameroon cocoa (and coffee) producers to see if the information will help them grow commodities mirroring market needs. UNCTAD wants to avoid over supply problems that can deflate prices, sometimes ruining producers.…