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The article offers world news briefs related to digital information as of October 2016. Topics include plan of the European Union to introduce value-added tax on electronic books to harmonize print and ebook rates; the National Library of Israel's plan to acquire papers of author Franz Kafka after the country's Supreme Court ruling that manuscripts are the property of the Library; and digitization of author William Shakespeare's Globe archive in London, England by publisher Adam Matthew.

There currently exist a bewildering variety of fire safety regula-tions for railway vehicles in Europe. In practice, the complexity of the standards and legislation makes the approval process for railway vehicles immensely complicated. Awareness of this problem has grown at the EU level - and hence it is now planned to put uniform structures in place for fire safety regu-lations. These regulations are, however, likely to lead to very tough requirements for fire safety systems in rolling stock. In future, therefore, a compensatory approach will become more and more important. Here, demonstration of equivalence will become more and more attractive as a way of realizing creative and efficient vehicle concepts while safeguarding fire safety. In the paper presented the development of fire safety regula-tions for railway vehicles and possibilities and acceptance of implementation of compensatory measures are described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article notes the negative impact of digital technology and technological innovations on print journalism in the U.S. and the European Union's (E.U.'s) tax policy protects traditional print media by taxing paper books at a lower rate than electronic books, then questions the long-term consequences of the E.U.'s tax policy.

Presents information on the views of executives on the ability of the chemical industry to lobby the European Union to issue a draft of the White Paper chemicals legislation in Europe. Reason behind the delay in the publication of the draft; Impact of the legislation on the chemical industry.