Search Results for: food

Students from sub-Saharan African countries are warning they are ready to abandon degree courses in Tunisian universities and colleges, fleeing this north African country in the wake of mass arrests of compatriots and racial violence this month.

Christian Kwongang, president of the Tunisian Association of Sub-Saharan Students (Association des Étudiants et Stagiaires Africains en Tunisie – AESAT) said that as of March 7, at least 400 sub-Saharan African students had been arrested in immigration sweeps by police, and there had been more than 30 racially motivated physical attacks by the against black African students over the past year.…

Higher education and research institutions in Burkina Faso are under threat from a jihadist insurgency, as the west African country’s military government struggles to secure the security initiative. Human Rights Watch says insurgents control 40% of the country’s territory and 1.4 million people have fled their homes out of an overall population of 22.1 million, recounting hundreds of deaths in the conflict – civilian, military and insurgents – although it has not released an overall figure, and nor has the UN.…

Better analytical capabilities should be implemented to reduce the incidence of adulterated honey being imported into the European Union (EU), industry observers claim after a testing programme revealed almost half of the samples were fraudulently labelled. This concern was uncovered by a research initiative, ‘From the hives’, led by the European Commission’s directorate-general for health and food safety.…

The European Union (EU) has taken fresh action to reverse the decline of honeybees in Europe, with the European Commission revamping the EU Pollinators Initiative. The revised strategy involves spending on conservation, species reintroduction, research, monitoring and restricting dangerous pesticides. https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-5692-2023-INIT/en/pdf;…

Dogs have a troubled life in Tunisia. While in some neighbourhoods pet ownership has become more popular, as evidenced by the proliferation of new pet stores, these areas give an illusion that Tunisia is generally a dog-loving society. In reality, there is a much darker side of life for dogs in this country, where pedigree pooches are stolen for resale on the black market or females are made to breed puppies for profit, yet it is the native breeds that suffer the worst treatment.…

Russia’s bio-based oil sector looks set to benefit from the spoils of war, being poised to become the new global leader in the export of sunflower oil over the current agricultural year, overtaking past export leader Ukraine, which its military has invaded since last February, with 8,317 civilian deaths as of March 20 (2023).…

As the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine passes – with 8,173 civilians killed as of March 5 (UN figures), the European Union (EU) has been debating dealing with a boom in Ukrainian food imports. While Ukraine food exporters have struggled to ship output via maritime ports, because of Russian naval action, the EU has strengthened road and rail land connections, plus riverine Danube ports.…

Portugal’s milk production sector has been shrinking, with long-standing vulnerabilities worsened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has increased feed and energy costs. Even though contraction has been halted in the past six months by rising milk prices, the industry remains fragile and vulnerable to economic headwinds.…

Food security concerns have driven China’s ministry of agriculture and rural affairs to push Chinese soy output in the past two years as growing tension with its main western trading partners – coupled with the inflationary impact of the invasion of Ukraine – has preoccupied officials at the ministry’s complex in the Tuanjiehu neighbourhood of Beijing.…

Turkey’s textile and clothing sector is grappling with the fact that around a third of the country’s garment and textile production capacity was clustered around the epicentre of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that has killed more than 47,000 people, left millions homeless and destroyed hundreds of thousands of buildings.…