Archive

BY MONICA DOBIE
LONGSTANDING Canadian meat traders have vowed not to ship to Cuba in future because the Caribbean island dumped them for American competitors.

The switch followed an agreement in November 2001 by Fidel Castro to buy agricultural goods from US companies, following a hurricane that ravaged his country.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
MORE sophisticated analysis of meat yields from carcasses are required say researchers from New Zealand’s Massey University, who have concluded that valuing carcasses on their shape could be biased towards certain breeds, They found relationships between carcass shape and meat yield are not always consistent for different groups of animals, which can have different muscle to bone ratios.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has published a paper examining ways of making European Union (EU) meat production more commercially competitive with imports from countries which do not have the same animal welfare standards. The report considered special welfare labelling, subsidising higher standards through the EU Common Agricultural Policy and granting better trade terms to high welfare imports.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
FRANCE has escaped virtually scot-free over its six-year ban on exports of British beef in spite of a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) last December that the ban was illegal. The European Commission announced today Thursday that it had withdrawn its application to the ECJ for the imposition of a daily fine on France for failing to implement the December judgement.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Economic Commission for Europe has drawn up a set of standard meat cuts for sheepmeat sold in Europe, to ease confusion amongst exporters and traders faced with such terms as banjo cuts, oyster cuts, spare ribs or tenderloins.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
US poultry producers have slaughtered 9,600 chickens after an outbreak of Newcastle Disease in California, which health officials have been trying to prevent infecting large-scale commercial poultry producers. They have reported that outbreaks were discovered in 25 smallholdings in Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.…

BY MARK ROWE
AUSTRALIAN authorities have imposed restrictions on live exports after a spate of welfare disasters, which have involved thousands of sheep and cattle dying during shipment to the Middle East. Shippers will now have to supply detailed risk assessments for each shipment of animal.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
A REPORT by India’s petroleum ministry and consultants McKinsey & Co has said that to create an effective regulated monopoly in India transporting natural gas, the state-owned Gas Authority of India Ltd should be stripped of its marketing and petrochemicals roles.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IRAQ is to receive two power plant gas turbines worth US$80 million under a United Nations oil-for-food programme contract, pending for nearly two years, but released under new rules speeding up project approvals. The turbines will produce power for the northern governorates of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, reconnecting them to the national electricity grid.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation of the World Bank is lending Russian oil company Lukoil US$150 million to fund participation in the development of Kazakhstan’s oil, gas, and condensate field. The money will also help fund a 635-km connecting pipeline to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s infrastructure, which will transport the oil to the Black Sea.…