30/11/2007 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Britain’s Hadley Centre Met Office predicts that 2007 will go down as the hottest year on record, thanks to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, which are responsible for rising temperatures. The ten hottest years in the last 150 are concentrated between 1995 and today.
27/11/2007 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs will hold a hearing on environment and health in Paris, on Friday 30 November. Discussions will focus on chemical risk assessment, environmental health and medicine, and the role of NGOs in this process.
27/11/2007 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE sub-Committee on Sustainable Development will hold a hearing in Paris, Thursday 29 November, on global warming and ecological disasters, in the framework of a report prepared by Alan Meale (United Kingdom, SOC).
08/11/2007 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“The point of international adoption is to enable a child to find parents, with respect for his or her rights, not to satisfy the parent’s wish to have a child at all costs: there is no such thing as the right to a child!” This was the conclusion reached today by Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold (Switzerland, SOC), speaking on behalf of PACE Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee, at a meeting of the committee in Paris. In her report, which is based on fact-finding visits to Ukraine and Moldova, Mrs Vermot-Mangold firmly condemns the increasing use of alternative circuits that can encourage the disappearance of newborn babies for illegal adoption in Europe.
12/10/2007 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The Committee on Economic Affairs will meet representatives of the European Patent Office to take stock of the new outlook, following France’s ratification of the London Agreement to introduce greater flexibility into the translation requirements for European patents. At its plenary meeting the Committee on Economic Affairs will discuss the mobilisation of parliaments in the "New Partnership for Africa's Development" (NEPAD). The Committee will also visit the headquarters of Siemens and EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space) Germany.
12/10/2007 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
On 18 October the members of the Committee on the Environment will take part in the seminar on “Environmental and Scientific Issues of the North Atlantic: A European Perspective”, whose main themes will be fishing and climate change, marine pollution and marine governance. The day after the seminar there will be a plenary meeting of the Committee on the Environment, whose agenda will include: the state of the environment in the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea Basin, transfrontier co-operation, regional self-government in the Azores and the use of geothermal power.
18/09/2007 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee is organising two exchanges of views on the disappearance of newborn babies and child and teenage suicide on 20 September in Paris. With an eye to a new report by Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold (Switzerland, SOC) on the disappearance of newborn babies for illegal adoption in Europe, the participants will be hearing from David Olivier Kaminski, a lawyer who appeared in the case of alleged trafficking in Bulgarian babies in France, and Alina Radu, a Moldovan journalist who will report on her experience of the problem in her country.
30/08/2007 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
After talks with politicians, with the Ombudswoman for Children and with representatives of various NGOs during his visit to Ukraine from 27 to 30 August, Michael Hancock (United Kingdom, ALDE), Rapporteur for the PACE Social Affairs Committee, notes that, while the problem of children abandoned at birth persists, the authorities are committed to combating the phenomenon by introducing major reforms focusing on children's rights, with appropriate financial resources, the aim being to "de-institutionalise" this practice.
20/02/2007 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE's Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee adopted a draft report on the quality of medicines in Europe at its meeting in Paris on 22 February 2007. The report, by Bernard Marquet (Monaco, ALDE), highlights the alarming increase in counterfeit medicines, which now account for 10% of the world market, and cost states 500 billion euros in lost taxes every year. It calls for an international convention, defining a new offence – pharmaceutical crime – and making it possible to arrest, prosecute and punish the producers of counterfeit or adulterated medicines.
06/02/2007 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
At the end of a two-day visit to Moldova (5-6 February), Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold, who is preparing a report for PACE on the disappearance of new-born babies for illegal adoption, made the following statement:"I have had a positive visit, involving fruitful exchanges of view with interlocutors from all parts of society including the authorities, for which I am grateful. All share my aim of protecting new-born children from illegal adoption, a complex and hidden crime. However, before coming to any final conclusions concerning the situation here, I need to gather additional information, including from other countries. I intend to leave any further comment until my final report is made public later this year."
01/02/2007 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold (Switzerland, SOC), who is preparing a report for PACE on the disappearance of new-born babies for illegal adoption, will visit Moldova from 4 to 6 February 2007. She will seek to investigate allegations of newspaper advertisements targeting unmarried mothers who might be willing to sell their children for illegal adoption, and to look into the possible illegal trafficking of babies.
15/12/2006 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
At a meeting yesterday in Paris, PACE's Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs urged the governments of the organisation’s 46 member states to take action against modern-day enslavement and trafficking of seasonal agricultural workers. “Situations vary between countries, but all point to the same findings: the active population looking for work is, in part, constituted illegally and lastingly so as to create a real labour market and a casual, exploited workforce to match, often under outright conditions of modern-day bondage,” said John Dupraz (Switzerland, ALDE), PACE rapporteur on Agriculture and illegal employment in Europe.