Search Results for: food

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FUTURE phytosanitary agreements between the EU and third countries should focus on “a limited number of products of undoubted importance to the parties,” said the European Commission following the emergence of a number of “practical problems” in existing deals.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
ONE of the world’s most inhospitable deserts is yielding scores of unknown species that have existed since the time of the dinosaurs.

They have been discovered in the Simpson Desert in central Australia, where summer temperatures reach 50C and where there is no rain for months, sometimes years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITH formal approval being secured for the launch of the European Food Safety Authority, the European Commission has promised to work swiftly so that the new body can be operational by the end of this year in its temporary home in Evere, north Brussels.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A GLOBAL Forum on Food Safety Regulators has been staged by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation, (FAO), and the World Health Organisation, reflecting concern about recent food safety incidents, such as BSE, that the FAO claims have “caused serious turmoil in the world food markets and raised concern among consumers.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND MARK ROWE
THE EUROPEAN Union has agreed a suspension of Chinese imports of molluscs, crustaceans, frozen shrimps and prawns because of concerns about contamination; it follows 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 EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has formally established the European Food Safety Authority, along with the set of EU regulations that it is supposed to police. Ministers confirmed that the new agency would be established temporarily in Brussels, as Member States have been unable to agree the location of its permanent home.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GLOBAL Partnership to Eliminate Riverblindness has announced that US$39 million has been pledged by its members to wipe out Onchocerciasis, (Riverblindness), in the whole of Africa by 2010. The group includes the World Bank, the World Health Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the US Agency for International Development and 30 African countries, along with private pharmaceutical companies, (including Merck).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU research Commissioner Philippe Busquin has called for a European organisation spreading expertise on plant science to be created. He has also stressed that the oncoming 2003-2006 EU Sixth Framework Programme for research has earmarked Euro 685 million for food quality and safety studies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
COMMON EU technical rules for declaring information and making market approval applications for GM food products have been approved by the Council of Ministers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SERIES of good practice recommendations on the prevention and detection of e-coli outbreaks has been issued by the European Commission, following a study of how six EU Member States deal with the pathogen.

Officials looked at the monitoring and control systems for red meat and milk in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Portugal and Sweden and concluded that although all were alert to the risks of e-coli contamination, there was a wide range of different public and private control measures.…