Archive

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Court of Auditors today (Thursday) attempted to undermine the mismanagement and fraud allegations brought against the European Commission, and in particular its vice-president Neil Kinnock, by its former chief accountant Marta Andreason, saying that a supposed report by the Court was no more than an incomplete internal working document.…

Keith Nuthall
EUROPEAN Union ministers have pressed ahead with approving planned changes to Europe’s First Company Law Directive, which would ease the filing of company documents and registrations via electronic technology and also in any official EU language. The EU Council of Ministers wants the European Parliament to approve the proposed reforms without making any additional amendments, so that the regulations can pass into European law without further debates.…

Keith Nuthall
POLITICAL agreement has been reached at the European Union’s Council of Ministers over a proposed harmonisation of national accounting laws for businesses that do not yet have to apply International Accounting Standards. National governments are keen to see the proposal swiftly become law and have forwarded their common position to the European Parliament with a request that it approves the proposed directive “at the earliest possible opportunity.”…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has imposed anti-dumping and countervailing duties on 10 Norwegian salmon exporters who had previously been exempt from the protective regime imposed in 1997. Ministers agreed that the companies had either broken promises to keep salmon prices at a minimum level or had failed to supply information proving that they had stuck to these pledges.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has asked EU ministers to approve new health checks and movement restrictions for sheep and goats during an outbreak of diseases such as foot and mouth, rabies, anthrax or brucellosis. The proposed regulation also includes toughened quarantine controls on animals imported from outside the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AGREEMENT has been struck by the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers over the final shape of new simplified and improved EU regulations governing the use of animal by-products not used for human consumption. They include rules on collection, storage, transport, handling, processing, use and disposal and are designed to help prevent further outbreaks of diseases such as foot and mouth.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has published a list of exported American meat products that could be saddled with protective duties of up to 100 per cent, because of a World Trade Organisation ruling allowing Brussels to retaliate against the US’s use of foreign trade corporations to give its exporters illegal tax breaks.…

BY MARK ROWE
BROILER chickens in Malaysia are to be raised in air-conditioned sheds as part of a government drive to raise productivity and export potential. The Malaysian government wants to help phase out traditional open-air coops and replace them with closed-door air con units that are cooler, help the chickens grow more quickly and keep out disease.…

BY MARK ROWE
MALAYSIA is to set up a halal food conglomerate with companies from China and the Middle East as part of its campaign to promote the country as a hub for Muslim food, notably meat products. The Malaysian government believes much of the lucrative market for halal food remains relatively untapped; in China alone there are some 50 million Muslims.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
SRI Lanka’s Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise holder Cargills Food Services (Pvt) Ltd. has invested SLRupees four million on converting an old Ceylon Transport Board bus to offer a mobile KFC service, which is being run as an experiment.…