IRU calls for candidates for its City Trophy Award 2009 to promote excellence in sustainable tourism through coach-friendly policies.

Brussels – After Rochester (2003), Dresden (2005) and Chester (2007), the International Road Transport Union (IRU) is now looking forward to congratulating the winner of the IRU City Trophy 2009 by launching today its call for candidatures addressed to city authorities all over the world.

Press release:

To put the spotlight on sanitation, the UN General Assembly declared the year 2008 the International Year of Sanitation. The goal is to raise awareness and to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target to reduce by half the proportion of the 2,6 billion persons without access to basic sanitation by 2015.

Access to sanitation is also deeply connected to virtually all the Millennium Development Goals, in particular those involving the environment, education, gender equality and the reduction of poverty and child mortality.

Fact Sheet
Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Geneva, 22 January 2009

In recent decades, the rapid growth of road transport in the European Region,  while supporting economic development and integration, has harmed health and the environment through congestion, road traffic crashes, air and noise pollution, and contributing to sedentary lifestyles and emissions of greenhouse gases. The health and environmental consequences of transport affect most of the population, not just transport users.

The European Court of Justice ruled in favour of  workers in the Joint Cases Schulze-Hoff versus Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund und Stringer and Others versus Her Majesty´s Revenue and Customs. In its judgement issued on the 20th January 2009, the Court of Justice of the European Community interprets the entitlement to paid annual leave protected by the working time directive, ruling that a worker does not lose his right to paid annual leave which he has been unable to exercise because of sickness and must therefore be compensated for his annual leave not taken.

EDMA, the European Diagnostic Manufacturers Association welcomes the Cervical Cancer Prevention Week of 18-24 January 2009, and supports the fight against cervical cancer, because with about 60.000 new cases and 30.000 deaths per year, it is the second most common cancer in women aged under-50 in Europe.