Search Results for: food

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organisation has launched a livestock census in Afghanistan, a key part of its plan to rehabilitate the country’s meat production sector. FAO officials will visit more than 30,000 villages and farming communities over the coming months to collate detailed information on animal numbers and livestock production practices.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE RUSSIAN government has re-launched production of its two most famous vodka brands, Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya, after they had been suspended for several months. The resumption of sales follows a long battle caused by the break up of the Soviet Union.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed the authorisation of a new food additive, hydrogenated poly-1-decene, which Brussels wants cleared for use as a glazing agent in confectionery and dried fruit. The idea is to provide manufacturers with an alternative to the banned white mineral oil other than vegetable oil-based products, which suffer from rancidity and stickiness.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WHEN the New Year is upon us, pessimists tend to herald the approach of apocalypse, gloomy tidings and battening down the hatches. And in a year that may see war in the Middle East, the naysayers may say more in 2003 than usual.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GEOFFREY Podger will start work as Executive Director of the European Food Safety Authority on February 1. He has been chief executive of the UK Food Standards Agency. The EU agency will now appoint its advisory forum, its scientific committee and panels, and recruit most of its staff.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THAI researchers have discovered a fungus parasite on fragrant rice that produces its pandanus leaf aromatic quality. The finding could enhance the flavour of the rice and lead to developments in the food industry.…

BY PHILIP FINE

THE US National Academy of Sciences says that no significant evidence yet exists that eating products from cloned livestock causes harm. A committee – which included microbiologists, geneticists and animal scientists – said most of the serious risks are not human health hazards linked to food but from the potential impact of cloned animals on the environment that they interact with.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, ALAN OSBORN AND PHILIP FINE

THE EUROPEAN Union, the United States and their various allies seem to be moving towards a deal at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) negotiations over the creation of a global register for protected geographical indications in the wine and spirit trade.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
ENVIRONMENTALISTS have gained significant new access rights to information held by public authorities and others under legislation agreed by the Council of Ministers of the European Union (EU) and the European Parliament. In what was welcomed by environmental campaigners as a victory over some EU member governments, the agreement goes well beyond the United Nations’ 1998 Aarhus Convention on information, decision-making and redress in environmental matters by widening the range of what can be accessed and simplifying the procedures.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT might seem a long way from South Hams District Council’s public tendering process to world trade negotiations in Geneva, but thanks to the globalisation process that upsets so many protesters with metal rods stuck through their noses, the two are actually closely related.…