Archive
International News Services archives articles supplied to clients one year or more after initial publication. These articles are protected by a password and not made available to readers without permission from clients. They are used as a background resource by agency journalists. Upon client requests, International News Services will remove such articles from the archive or not upload them in the first place. They are included to demonstrate the breadth of topics undertaken by the agency and also to help promote clients’ coverage.
BRAINS
BY MONICA DOBIE
LIGHT drinking may be healthier than not drinking or heavy drinking, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, adding yet another angle to the on-going debate of health risks or benefits associated with alcohol consumption.…
STUNNING CATTLE
BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EU’s Scientific Steering Committee has opened a public consultation on the risks presented by certain stunning methods used to slaughter cattle. Some methods posed a risk of dissemination of brain particles into the blood, lungs and heart of the slaughtered animal, it said.…
SPANISH PIGMEAT
BY ALAN OSBORN
THE SPANISH provinces of Valencia, Cuenca and Teruel have been freed from restrictions on the export of live pigs and porcine semen arising out of classical swine fever, the European Commission has decided. Live pig exports will only be permitted over the next 30 days if they come from CSF-free holdings however.…
LAMB SAFEGUARDS
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE US, Australian and New Zealand governments have struck a deal over how to settle the dispute over American safeguard duties on Australasian lamb exports. Under the agreement, the US will continue to subsidise its domestic lamb producers until February 2003, after scrapping its protective tariff-rate quota safeguard this November 15.…
POLISH GRANT
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE LARGEST meat processing company in Poland could receive a Euro 12.5 million loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Its board has been asked to approve plans to lend money to finance the transfer of best practice know-how to Sokolow SA, to expand its poultry business and promote exports.…
POLLUTION CONTROL
BY KEITH NUTHALL
ADVICE on creating integrated pollution control policies within meat plants has been included in a new EU report. It highlighted self-monitoring, strategic planning with deadlines, and the introduction of best practice plans for improving “hygiene, water minimisation, energy efficiency and the minimisation of disinfectants.”…
FRANCE BEEF CASE
BY ALAN OSBORN
BRITISH beef producers may be able to claim damages from France if an opinion released today Thursday by an Advocate General of the European Court of Justice over the French ban on imports of UK beef is upheld by the full court.…
CODEX THINK PIECE
BY ALAN OSBORN
MOST governments are keenly concerned about the quality of food their people eat, and quite rightly so. They pass laws to ensure food purity and safety and that’s all very commendable – but it can be overdone.
Regulations can, sometimes deliberately, be drawn up so tightly that they effectively bar the sale of food produced in other countries, thus constituting an impediment to free trade.…
FRANCE ECJ THINK PIECE
BY ALAN OSBORN
FRANCE has been stingingly rebuffed by a judge of the European Court of Justice over her refusal to let British beef back in after the export ban was lifted by the European Commission in 1999. An Advocate General of the Court – or adviser – says France was in the wrong.…
CHINA WTO THINK PIECE
BY KEITH NUTHALL
IN the years of the Cultural Revolution, when the bamboo curtain separated the world’s most populous country from the rest of the globe, the idea of sending bulk agricultural exports to China would have seemed laughable. Even today, Chinese export markets buy up a fraction of British farming produce, but in the future, this could change.…