US Agriculture Department Under-secretary J.B. Penn will arrive in Tokyo today with a delegation to discuss beef test procedures to end Japan's decision to ban US meat imports last Friday.
The US farm delegation was sent to Tokyo by Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns to tell their Japanese counterparts about the status of an investigation into how backbone material, banned by Japan, got into a shipment of veal, the US embassy in Tokyo said in a faxed release.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said imports of US beef would stop after learning on Friday that banned cattle parts were found in three of 41 boxes of beef shipped by Atlantic Veal & Lamb Inc.
Japan resumed US beef imports last month after a two-year halt over concerns about mad-cow disease. Trade resumed on condition the meat come from cattle no older than 20 months and that spinal cords, brains and other parts of cattle blamed for spreading the human variant of mad-cow disease are removed.
The plant that exported the suspect meat can no longer export beef to Japan, Johanns said in a statement on Friday. He said additional inspectors would be assigned to review procedures and ensure compliance with the export agreement with Japan.
Mad-cow disease is a brain-wasting livestock illness that scientists say is spread in cattle by tainted animal feed. Eating contaminated meat from infected animals can cause a fatal human variant that has been blamed for the deaths of 151 people in the UK, where it was first reported in the 1980s, according to the World Organization for Animal Health.
US beef exports plunged to 195 million kilograms in 2004 from a record 1.13 billion kilograms in 2003, after mad-cow disease was found in the US. Shipments rose to 290 million kilograms last year as some countries lifted import bans. The USDA on Jan. 12 estimated exports this year at 438.75 million kilograms.
Members of the delegation accompanying Penn are Charles Lambert, a deputy undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, and Curt Mann, undersecretary for food safety and inspection services, the embassy said.
US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, in Japan for two days of talks before attending the World Economic Forum in Davos on Jan. 25-28, is to meet with Foreign Minister Taro Aso today on bilateral military base issues, a foreign ministry spokesman said.
Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, Japan's chief government spokesman, said he would convey Japan's complaint on the beef blunder to Zoellick, Kyodo News reported on Saturday, citing Abe's remarks at a consumer rally in Yamaguchi prefecture.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
RSS