Search Results for: food

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations’ increasingly misnamed oil-for-food scheme has been extended until November 30, with the Iraqi government and the UN Security Council agreeing to break the deadlock that led to the agreement being suspended since June.

Diplomats agreed that any changes to the programme should be put off in the meantime, although the American and British governments have released statements saying that they intended to continue discussions focused on reforming the system.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IRELAND is being threatened with legal action by the European Commission over its alleged failure to extend the EU product liability directive to primary agricultural foodstuffs, such as meat and game. Ireland had until last December to changes its law, to allow Irish food manufacturers, processors and caterers to pass on liability for defective products to farmers, where the blame is clear.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRUSSELS is always looking for big ideas by which it can justify its existence to a doubting public and one of the latest of these is the concept of a European Research Area. This idea is that Europe – with its patchwork of nations and national research units – should coordinate its academics and researchers, making sure that they do not duplicate their efforts, rather dovetailing them with a single European goal in mind.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ADMINISTRATIVE reforms made by the Belgian government in the wake of the dioxin contamination crisis have been judged so effective by the European Commission, that it has decided to drop a European Court of Justice case against alleging that Belgium had broken EU food safety laws.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A MAJOR extension of the powers of the European Medicines Evaluation Agency (EMEA) has been proposed by the European Commission as part of a sweeping reform of EU pharmaceutical legislation. At present the EMEA authorises only the use of high profile medicines derived from biotechnology, such as those used for cancer, AIDS, multiple schlerosis and Alzheimers disease among others.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A LACK of coordination amongst EU Member States’ research teams regarding the study of BSE has been revealed by a new European inventory of previous work and that in progress, collated by the European Commission.

It has highlighted areas where better links between national research programmes is required.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PROTECTION of the public from accidental contamination created by nuclear radiation does not just involve nuclear energy or defence installations, a European Commission report on radiation protection has pointed out. Other industries also use what are known as “elevated contents of naturally occurring radionuclides, (NORMs),” and these sites often require special radioactive clean-ups.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
THE HIGH production cost of sugar within India is a major stumbling block to the export of an existing large surplus, the country’s Minister of Food and Civil Supplies, Shanta Kumar has said at a press conference.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
AMERICAN meat processor Sara Lee’s guilty plea to a federal misdemeanor of making and distributing contaminated meats that were associated with 15 deaths and led to a settlement including a US$200,000 fine and to give US$3 million to fund food safety research at Michigan State University.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has agreed reforms to EU rules on pig welfare. They now ban the confinement of pregnant pigs to individual stalls and tethering of sows and gilts. The amended directive also includes rules on improving the living environment of pigs and piglets, such as a minimum size of sow pens, and requires permanent access to rooting materials and fibre food.…