GORKI: Russia granted Serbia a $500m loan yesterday and promised to back Belgrade in its dispute with Kosovo but warned it must broker a deal with its former province on its own. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told his Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic in Moscow that Russia would “always support our Serbian friends” but said the push for a deal with majority Albanian Kosovo must come from Belgrade itself. Serbia on Monday rejected the principles of an accord that emerged from six months of EU-mediated negotiations, saying they fell short of the broad autonomy it seeks for a small ethnic Serb pocket inside Kosovo.
Poll gives Merkel govt majority
BERLIN: The coalition government of Germany’s Angela Merkel scored its best poll results in more than three years, less than six months before elections, in a survey published yesterday. If a vote were held now, her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its junior partner, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), would win a clear governing majority, said the Forsa institute poll. The gap has widened mainly because of the weakness of the centre-left Social Democratic Union (SPD), whose chancellor candidate Peer Steinbrueck has had a poor campaign start, hobbled by a series of gaffes and missteps. Asked which candidate they preferred as chancellor, 57 percent of respondents opted for Merkel against just 19 percent for Steinbrueck.
50,000 tonnes of beef recalled
AMSTERDAM: Dutch food safety authorities have ordered the withdrawal of about 50,000 tonnes of beef from sale over concerns it might contain horsemeat. The Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) said in a statement yesterday that it had told more than 130 Dutch meat-processing firms to trace the meat, all of which had come to them from two Dutch wholesalers, and withdraw it. The wholesalers involved were Wiljo Import en Export B V and Vleesgroothandel Willy Selten BV. About 370 companies in other European countries have also bought the meat, and the Dutch food authority has warned foreign counterparts about the recall via a European rapid alert system, it said.
Pork found in halal-marked salami
STOCKHOLM: Pork meat from Slovenia has been found in halal-marked salami sold in Sweden, the Swedish National Food Agency said yesterday. “We are now going to inform the EU about our analyses and follow up with the company that sold this wrongly labelled salami in Sweden,” agency spokeswoman Louise Nyholm said. Pork consumption is prohibited under Islam. The agency did not disclose how much falsely marked meat had been sold or for how long it had been on the market. The Islamic halal method of killing an animal requires its throat to be slit and the blood to be drained. The method is forbidden in Sweden because the animals are not anaesthetised before slaughter.
Agencies
