The European Union (EU) and Canada announced they will impose a 15% tariff on some United States (U.S.) imports. Permission for the sanctions was granted by the World Trade Organization (WTO) due to the U.S. maintaining a law known as the Byrd Amendment, which gives its companies billions of dollars collected from foreign rivals.
U.S. Congress failed to repeal the four-year-old Byrd Amendment ruled illegal by the WTO in September 2002. The WTO gave the EU and Canada, in addition to Brazil, Japan, India, South Korea and Mexico the right to impo
Tawfik Tirawi, head of Palestinian Intelligence in the West Bank, resigned Thursday. Fatah officials said he told President Mahmoud Abbas that too little was being done to curb lawlessness in the West Bank and Gaza.
"I cannot work under these conditions," he wrote in a letter of resignation given to Abbas.
He reportedly claims other heads of Palestinian security organizations had not done enough to impose the rule of law Abbas has promised. Abbas himself said some senior Palestinian officials are blocking his reform efforts.
Tirawi is the mo
German retail corporation Rewe plans to open several Penny Market discount stores in Romania in the middle of this year. Rewe is mainly interested in opening stores in cities such as Ploieşti, Câmpina, Tecuci, Focşani, Oneşti, Craiova, Caracal, Constanţa, Medgidia, Alexandria and Roşiori de Vede. Most of these cities have populations of below 100,000 people, and Rewe is hoping to take advantage of a market that has not been highly tapped into, since most of Romania's larger cities, such as Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca and Iaşi, already have multiple
British computer magazine PC Pro has investigated the electricity costs of running today's computers.
Their investigations showed that an individual could save £250 a year while a medium-sized business could potentially save £5,000 a year by making changes to the way computers and their peripherals are operated.
A CRT monitor uses £150 of electricity over five years; enough to pay for a new low-power LCD monitor. Using a screen saver, rather than turning the monitor off or using many computers' built-in feature to turn monitors off after a pe
Israel's parliament, the Knesset, voted against a bill calling for a referendum on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's controversial plan to withdraw Israeli forces and civilians from the Gaza Strip and some parts of the West Bank. The vote passed 72-39, with three abstentions and six absent. The vote removes the last major hurdle for Mr. Sharon to implement the proposed plan, scheduled to start in July.
Mr. Sharon's administration has not yet survived the upcoming vote on the 2005 budget, which takes place on Tuesday. But it has secured the support
In the wake of India's March 26 announcement that it intends to build its first indigenous aircraft carrier, and recent American overtures aimed at greater defense cooperation to help make India a "major power," speculation is rife as to the future geopolitical consequences for the Asian region and the world.
India's rise to greater military power may serve as a counterbalance to China in the Asian region. China is interested in developing a free trade pact with India and has made overtures in that direction, which are under consideration in
Chess prodigy and former world champion, Bobby Fischer, arrived by jet Thursday in Iceland after being released from prison in Japan the day before. Jailed 9 months in Japan for traveling without a valid passport, and dogged by a U.S. felony charge for violating a government sanction, the 62 year old eccentric chess genius was just last week granted Icelandic citizenship based on humanitarian grounds.
In a first order of business to clear Fischer's way into Iceland, a lawsuit was filed by his lawyer where he alleges the U.S. government conspir
The newly elected and protested Kyrgyz parliament today voted to back opposition leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev as prime minister, as the reconvening former parliament had done days before. The lower house of the former parliament also formally stepped down, although the upper house has not done so yet.
Deposed president Askar Akayev issued a statement from Russia in response, accusing the new leaders of disgracing the country and ruining the economy.
In response to the endorsement, Bakiyev issued a statement acknowledging the newly elected parliam
Morogoro Plastic will open a plastic grinding plant in the Tanzania town of Morogoro in April of 2005, according to Faustine Rwambali of the East African. The grinding plant will be followed by a network of 5 washing plants around Tanzania. 75% of the $2m (2bn Tsh) investment needed to build the system of plants has been provided by Barclays. The first three washing plants will be in Mwanza, Arusha, and Dar es Salaam, followed by a plant on the island of Zanzibar and one in the southern part of the country.
The East African, a weekly business
American President George Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, and Mexican President Vicente Fox met at Baylor University in Waco, Texas on Wednesday. The leaders discussed cooperation in the areas of border security, trade, and immigration, signing an accord called the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America."
"In a rapidly changing world, we must develop new avenues of cooperation that will make our open societies safer and more secure, our businesses more competitive, and our economies more resilient," read a joint state
Sony launched its eagerly anticipated PlayStation Portable (PSP) in the North American market today. The PlayStation costs $250 and plays MP3 files, movies and of course games.
Launched previously in Japan last year with much fanfare, the PSP quickly achieved sales of more than 800,000 units. The device is Sony's first major attempt at challenging Nintendo's long held grip on the market for handheld games.
Nintendo currently holds a 90 percent of the market share for handhelds in North America. With the recent introduction of Nintendo DS, th
Starting from April 4, the Romanian Commercial Bank (Banca Comercială Română, or BCR), the country's largest bank, will launch a smart card system for all its ATM network as well as its point-of-sale terminals in more than 5,000 stores across Romania. While the system will be enabled to work with these cards from April, the smart cards themselves will only be issued to account holders in the second half of the year.
Smart cards in a banking context are cards which contain information on a chip and can permit greater security and control of tra
