Search Results for: united nations⊂mit=Search

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE AMERICAN government is going into overdrive to challenge a World Trade Organisation (WTO) panel ruling that some of its cotton production subsidies and export subsidies illegally break global commerce rules. Washington has already announced an appeal against the decision on a complaint from Brazil that US subsidies have depressed global prices and enabled American exporters to unfairly elbow out competitors.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRUSSELS whistle-blower and now anti-fraud MEP Paul van Buitenen has been using his new position to undermine his countrywoman competition-commissioner designate Neelie Kroes. Van Buitenen followed up a short broadside against Kroes’ commercial links at this week’s European Parliament hearing by circulating detailed allegations on paper to its press officers: these were all vigorously denied by Kroes as “unfounded and nonsensical”.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
WORKING woman in the United States spend twice as much time doing household chores and caring for children as do working men, according to a US Department of Labour study which focused on how Americans spent their time outside of work.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A NASCENT tourism hotspot is being nurtured by the United Nations in Afghanistan, where the former Taliban government exploded the famous Bamiyan Buddha statues. The site also sports other archaeological remains and the scenic Band-i-Amir Lake, so the UN is training local war widows in providing travel hospitality services.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Plant Genetic Resources Institute and United Nations Environment Programme have launched an In-Situ Conservation of Crop Wild Relatives Through Enhanced Management and Field Application scheme preserving biodiversity in species rich Armenia, Bolivia, Madagascar, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan.…

BY MARK ROWE
AT first sight they would appear to be uneasy bedfellows. On the one hand, English Heritage, the British government’s advisory body with responsibility for the care and maintenance of the country’s historic environment; on the other, the Marxist-led government of the Indian state of West Bengal.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States Department of Energy (DoE) “is set to cancel work” on its six-year-old FIRE (fusion ignition research experiment), the European Commission is predicting. Its research directorate general was convinced by Anne Davies – DoE fusion energy office director – branding FIRE’s copper magnets “dead end technology”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) says that European forest product consumption rose to a record 1.3 billion cubic metres in 2003-4, up 1.3% on the previous year. Its annual 2003-4 market review for the sector said that sawn softwood demand rose strongly in western Europe (up 5% to 79 million m3).…

BY EDWARD PETERS, in Hong Kong
HONG Kong might be renowned for being one of the safest cities in the world – mugging and other forms of street violence are practically unknown – but that’s not to say that commercial crime doesn’t rear its ugly head in the Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China, reports Edward Peters.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
DEATHS linked to asbestos exposure in the United States have skyrocketed and will continue to rise according to the federal government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which said that 1,493 people died from asbestos in 2000, compared with 77 in 1968.…