Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States has launched a disputes case at the World Trade Organisation against Mexico, complaining about its southern neighbour’s antidumping duties on American beef exports. Washington is claiming that Mexico broke WTO rules in framing these duties, notably its choice of data used in dumping investigations and its methods of measuring alleged injuries suffered by Mexican beef producers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AMERICAN pork exports are thriving according to a new report from the United States Trade Representative (USTR) office. Overseas sales of swine, pork and pork products have increased three times in volume and 2.5 times in value since 1993, with the US now exporting more than 700 tonnes of pork worldwide worth over US$1.5 billion.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EASILY understood guidelines have been produced by the European Commission’s Food and Veterinary Office to help meat and livestock importers understand often complex EU food safety rules. They spell out inspections required by EU officials, with a focus on clearly explaining the steps developing country exporters must take.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
EUROPEAN Union (EU) beef producers will be able to retain most of their existing production-linked subsidies in spite of a major reform of the Common Agricultural Policy agreed by farm ministers of the 15 member countries early today (Thursday).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AGRICULTURAL economists may disagree, but predicting trends in world food markets is not necessarily rocket science. A dose of healthy common sense can be as good a guide for the future demand for commodities as any amount of slide rules and complex economic equations.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE RUSSIAN and Iranian governments have signed a protocol to cooperate in developing Iran’s coal industry. Russia’s energy ministry said it would work to improve all aspects of the industry, from coal production to processing. The Russians will initially help develop operations in the southern Iranian city of Yazd, the centre of Iran’s major coal producing region.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament could be heading for a political collision with the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers over the scope of a reformed Seveso II directive, which imposes commitments on industry to avoid serious accidents.

At the heart of the looming struggle is the insistence of MEPs that the updated legislation covers all forms of mining activity, notably the chemical and thermal processing of dangerous substances within mines.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
AUSTRALIAN firm Dynamic Automation Systems (DAS) has invented an autonomous navigation system called MINEGEM? (which it has dubbed the “smart loader”), allowing operators to control machines remotely from the surface.

Using an autopilot system the operator can control several machines at once, ordering them to pick up materials, carry them to a dump point and return to the draw point.…

BY RICHARD HURST
THE CHAMBER of Mines of South Africa has reported that the country’s gold output for the first quarter of 2003 was down 2.7 per cent at 92,314 kilograms when compared to the same quarter in 2002 and was down 6.8 per cent when compared to the fourth quarter 2002.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE PROSPECT of significant underwater monosite, ilmanite, rutile and zircon off the Sri Lankan coast has attracted the attention of 10 international companies, two from Australia, two from India and two from Sri Lanka. Their applications to mine the 11 heavy mineral seabed deposits, whose estimated worth exceeds US$330 million, are being considered by the island’s Marine Pollution Prevention Authority (MPPA).…