Search Results for: food

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD food standards body, Codex Alimentarius, has revised its guidelines for sugars, cocoa and dairy products, sitting in its 24th session in Geneva, Switzerland.

Attended by 365 delegates, alternates and advisors from 87 Member countries, this meeting of Codex commission adopted 41 new or revised standards, guidelines and related texts, all of which are voluntary, although having influence by the fact they have been agreed internationally and that they promote trade.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE TIMING of concessions that can be achieved at the World Trade Organisation’s agricultural round, sweeping away the high tariffs, import quotas, production subsidies and export credits that make the working lives of every agricultural exporter more of a struggle, are likely to be set in the next three months.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
EUROPEAN Union government ministers have agreed that from July 2002 a ban on the feeding of restaurant food waste to pigs will apply throughout the 15 EU countries, as part of a directive on the control of classical swine fever.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A LABELLING directive to be proposed shortly by the European

Commission could compel the wine and spirits industry to list all allergens on bottles, following an opinion from EU food scientists that they could cause possibly fatal allergic reactions.…

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
POLAND has announced that it intends to impose retaliatory restrictions on Slovakian food exports, in response to the safeguard duties imposed on imports of sugar by its east European neighbour, which Warsaw claims were erected in a way that breaks world trade laws.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has formally proposed its anticipated list of maximum dioxin contamination limits for food products. The levels for fish are as predicted last week in Environmental Health News. For dairy products, beef and sheep-meat it is three nanograms per kilogram of fat, for example.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
WILL there come a day when a genuine European market in health care takes its place among the other landmark achievements of the European Union?

In terms of economic efficiency and the functioning of the internal market, does it make much sense for a million patients in Britain, say, to have to wait sometimes for a year or more for important operations while people in France or Luxembourg can book them for the next day and some German hospitals have barely half their beds filled?…

BY ALAN OSBORN
NEW labelling requirements that will spell out in some detail the presence and history of genetically modified organisms, (GMO’s), in food sold in the 15 EU countries have been proposed by the European Commission. The regulation, which requires approval by the European Parliament and the EU national governments, extends present legislation, removes loopholes and brings in a new comprehensive traceability requirement.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU consumer affairs Commissioner David Byrne has revealed details of a planned new European directive on food labelling to a round table on food quality, safety and production, that could lead to a dramatic expansion of the ingredient information that must be printed.…