Search Results for: food

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE STRUCTURE of the World Trade Organisation negotiations launched last year in Doha, Qatar, to liberalise much of global commerce, has now been set, with committees and working parties being given the task of agreeing detailed timetables for their work.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE Indian cabinet is discussing a new national policy for food processing, which would pave the way for a Processed Food Development Authority. New Delhi is considering the rationalisation of Indian food legislation, currently divided into a plethora of laws, including those relating to the environment, marketing, grading and control.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A GLOBAL Forum on Food Safety Regulators has been staged in Morocco by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation and the World Health Organisation, reflecting concern about recent food safety disasters, such as BSE.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FOR an institution known for its tortoise-like deliberations, the World Trade Organisation has set itself such tight deadlines to make serious progress in its ongoing agricultural round that it will have to work, in its terms, at break-neck speed.…

KEITH NUTHALL
A STRING of cases have been launched by the European Commission against Member States of the European Union to try and force them to comply with EU water legislation; under existing rules, failure to abide by the court’s rulings can see national governments being hit with huge daily recurring fines of up to Euro 100,000.…

BY MARK ROWE
A HUGE cleanup operation has been launched in Djibouti after a spillage at the port’s dockside of 10 containers full of toxic pesticides en route from the United Kingdom to Ethiopia. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is overseeing a Pounds 70,000 emergency fund to tackle the contamination which occurred almost four weeks ago but details of which have only just emerged.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AS acts of international largesse go, the expansion of the European Union eastwards and southwards must rank as being one of the most generous in history. With research estimates claiming that the size of the EU budget will soar to accommodate the needs of the former communist republics, (plus Cyprus and Malta), we are talking Marshall Plan here; billions of Euro’s being transferred from national coffers in western Europe to the east, via Brussels.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a general action plan to promote biotechnology in the EU, which will especially focus on encouraging innovation in food production. Brussels fears that the EU could lose competitive advantage against its competitors if the opportunities offered by biotechnology are not seized.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CHINA has attacked a ban by the EU on certain Chinese food imports on health grounds as ‘unacceptable’ and warned it could seriously affect bilateral trade. The European Commission voted to ban honey, poultry and rabbit meat, plus shrimps and prawns, following the discovery of “serious deficiencies” in China’s medical residue control system and “problems related to the use of banned substances in the veterinary field.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE OFTEN tortoise-like World Trade Organisation has set itself such tight deadlines to make serious progress in its ongoing agricultural round that it will have to work, in its terms, at break-neck speed.

Announcing the end of the second stage of the talks, where diplomats attempted to put details on the general liberalisation proposals made in stage one, the round’s special session of the agriculture committee gave itself until March 31 to agree firm principles on which to base bilateral horse-trading that should start months afterwards.…