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BY PHILIP FINE

THE UNITED States government has integrated information on all its consumer product recalls onto one central website, offering a convenient service to retailers. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has launched the English and Spanish-language site (www.recalls.gov) in collaboration with five other federal agencies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Protocol on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) has come into force. The 1998 protocol focuses on 16 substances: 11 pesticides, 2 industrial chemicals and 3 by-products/contaminants and tells signatory countries to eliminate any discharges, emissions and losses of these POPs, which are thought to cause birth defects and reduce male sperm counts.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INNOVATIVE nanotechnology technology has been trialled in the United States, effectively spraying a protective crystal crust on a New Mexico mountainside that had been left exposed to erosion by a fire. Its flames destroyed 5,000 acres of land considered sacred by the Taos Pueblo Native Indian group.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo
THE UNITED States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) will provide technical assistance to Sri Lanka so it can comply with the rules of the US Container Security Initiative. The agency has asked US company Aerospace

Services International Inc.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AFTER a long period of consultation, a comprehensive directive protecting the European Union’s (EU) groundwater reserves has been proposed by the European Commission, which would force Member States to establish and police locally sensitive pollution limits. The legislation would insist that national governments carefully monitor groundwater quality and take steps to reverse its pollution, where it has exceeded these self-imposed thresholds.…

BY PHILIP FINE

THE USA could become a major pectin producer after a Penn State University (Pennsylvania) researcher developed a process to extract high-quality pectin from orange peels. The complex carbohydrate, used to thicken jellies and fruit fillings, has been traditionally slow cooked by Europeans using lime peels imported from Mexico and south America.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
OPPORTUNITIES for lawyers to handle varied and potentially lucrative liability claims against international organisations could arise from debates now being held at the United Nations (UN). Its legal committee is discussing whether they should be responsible for failing to achieve their formal objectives.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
UNITED Nations secretary general Kofi Annan has welcomed an agreement between the (former US President) Clinton Foundation and four pharmaceutical companies in developing countries to halve the price of anti-retroviral drugs treating HIV/AIDS. Aspen Pharmacare Holdings, of Johannesburg, South Africa; Cipla of Mumbai, India; Ranbaxy Laboratories, of Delhi, India; and Matrix Laboratories of Hyderabad, India, will cut the annual cost of drugs for each infected person to as little as US$140.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN AGREEMENT has been negotiated between the European Commission and the United States that should create common pre-shipment clearance shipments for goods shipped between the European Union (EU) and the US. If EU ministers agree, it would tell European and American exporters to provide sufficient information about goods to allow “sophisticated targeting” of security checks, prior to shipping.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) retail goods importers are girding themselves for the imposition of heavy duties on a range of United States food and clothing exports, after the World Trade Organisation authorised EU retaliation to American protection of its steel industry, erected in breach of global trade laws.…