Search Results for: food

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Amman

CORRUPTION in Jordan is on the decline but cronyism and bribery are still widespread. An anti-corruption law is pending in government, and the monarchy has called for the implementation of an anti-money laundering law, a financial disclosure law and an anti-corruption commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) may work with private food health alert services, after reviewing how it discovers and combats emerging risks. In an assessment paper, EFSA admitted it "will need to devote new internal resources for the work with emerging risks", which have recently ranged from fresh foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks, to dioxin contamination and new diseases such as SARS.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE 173 country membership of world food standards body Codex Alimentarius is now considering how to implement new approved regulations mandated by the organisation’s ruling commission. National representatives passed a series of draft standards that have been publicised in just-food.com,…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Agency has cleared as safe a new specific thermo-mechanical system for meat production plants, converting certain livestock by-products into bio-fuel, allowing on site heat generation. The system involves shaking the waste in high temperatures to extract water, the resulting waste is then incinerated on site, the heat being fed back into the dryer, and any excess heat is sent to the production plant.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

HARMONISED EU rules on assessing and approving the use of enzymes in food have been proposed by the European Commission, which would write a list of all enzymes accepted for food production, in consultation with the European Food Safety Authority.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD’S trade ministers will this August and September be considering whether they want to make further compromises that could restart the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round, which have been suspended amidst disagreement over its final goals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD’S international money laundering watchdog is warning that the global food trade can be criminals moving their illicit funds to legitimate bank-accounts. A case study released by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has revealed how an unnamed food product trading company, in an offshore financial centre, received revenue from so-called ‘blood diamonds’, mined by forced labour.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

SCIENTISTS from the USA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have determined that the mineral gypsum is a very effective soil additive for curbing run-off of phosphorus from farm fields into water supplies.

The study compared gypsum, alum and ground-up wastepaper at keeping phosphorus from leaching from farmland.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has launched a major public consultation exercise, which will include environmental health officers, to forge a common European Union (EU) method for assessing the environmental risks posed by animal feed. This will cover additives and other substances used in animal and fish feed and consider measuring their impact on soil, groundwater, surface water and sediment.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha round food trade talks collapsed today, with diplomats floundering about how to recover from damaging political deadlock. European Union (EU) trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has bluntly blamed the Americans for refusing to yield on reducing farm production subsidies.…