French anti-fraud teams search meat firms

Retailers have pulled frozen meals from shelves following a scandal over horsemeat sold as beef. Source: AAP

FRENCH anti-fraud agents have searched two firms at the centre of a scandal over horsemeat disguised as beef in ready-to-eat frozen meals sold in supermarkets across Europe.

The inspections on Monday came as French ministers prepared to hold a crisis meeting with key players in the meat industry, as the scandal that erupted in Britain continued to spread across the continent.

The DGCCRF fraud office said its inspectors were in the Comigel plant in the northeastern city of Metz and on the premises of Spanghero, which is based in the southwest.

Supermarket chains in Britain, France and Sweden have begun pulling millions of packs of lasagne, other pasta dishes, shepherd's pies and moussaka after it emerged that frozen food companies had used horsemeat instead of beef.

British supermarkets were the first to pull the products last week after Comigel warned that the beef it supplied to Findus frozen food firm - which sold its ready-to-eat meals to supermarkets - was suspect.

Comigel, which got its meat from Spanghero, said it had been cheated by its suppliers, while Spanghero in turn said it had been duped by abattoirs in Romania.

Both firms said they will sue suppliers, and the French and British governments have vowed to punish those who sold horsemeat purporting to be beef.

French Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll warned on Monday that more trouble lay ahead if Europe's complex system of wholesale meat trading was not reformed to make it simpler to trace the origin of food.

"We have to get out of this fog, because we can go on calling for traceability ... but if the system is so murky, if the fog is so thick that we are all lost, then we will end up with big problems," he told RTL radio.

"There are people who are out to defraud, who are trying to cheat," said Le Foll, who was due to meet later Monday for emergency talks with Consumer Affairs Minister Benoit Hamon and meat industry leaders.

The meat used in these products has been traced from France through Cyprus and The Netherlands to Romanian abattoirs.

The head of France's ANIA food industry association, Jean-Rene Buisson, who was due to attend the talks with the government, insisted Monday that his country's regulatory system was "the best in the world".

"We are not responsible for the fraud of one of our suppliers," he told Europe 1 radio.

"The traceability of food products is not being called into question in this affair. We put in place the best system in the world after the 'mad cow' crisis which will enable us to find out in two or three days who is responsible," he said.

The French government has promised the results of an urgent inquiry into the scandal by Wednesday.

Officials in Bucharest announced on Saturday their own inquiry after it emerged that abattoirs there allegedly produced the horsemeat sold on as beef.

Findus has said it will file a legal complaint in France on Monday after evidence showed the presence of horsemeat in its supply chain "was not accidental".

Its Nordic branch said on Sunday it planned to sue Comigel, which sells its products to customers in 16 countries, and its suppliers.

Comigel head Erick Lehagre told AFP the company had been fooled by its suppliers and vowed to seek compensation.

In Britain, tests have found that some frozen ready meals produced in mainland Europe and labelled as processed beef actually contained up to 100 per cent horsemeat.

But Food Minister Owen Paterson dismissed calls for a ban on EU meat imports, describing the idea as a "panic measure".

The scandal has had particular resonance in Britain, where eating horsemeat is considered taboo. British authorities have also said they are testing to see whether the horsemeat contains a veterinary drug that can be dangerous to humans.

19.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Pope Benedict is diehard traditionalist

POPE Benedict XVI, who has announced his intention to resign this month, will be remembered as a staunch defender of Roman Catholic orthodoxy, a diehard traditionalist and a lightning rod for controversy.

The German intellectual succeeded the long-reigning and popular John Paul II in April 2005 aged 78 after serving nearly a quarter-century as the Church's doctrinal enforcer, earning himself the nickname "God's Rottweiler."

The 85-year-old, who blamed his age for preventing him from continuing at the head of the papacy, will be the first pope to do so in centuries.

"I have had to recognise my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me," the head of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics said as he would step down on February 28.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's hardline approach, his nationality and his age were all seen as handicaps to his becoming Pope, and Benedict had famously said in a 2010 interview that he would resign if he felt he could no longer carry out his papal duties.

As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and then as Pope, he rejected the ordination of women and marriage for priests. He opposed homosexuality and communism and was never afraid of upsetting political sensibilities.

In 1984, he said "communist regimes which came to power in the name of the liberation are one of the disgraces of our times."

Ratzinger has also attacked rock music, calling it "the expression of basic passions".

As Pope, Benedict championed Christianity's European roots and showed his conservatism by repeatedly stressing family values and fiercely opposing abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage.

He also reintroduced the long-discarded Latin mass under certain conditions.

Above all, Benedict will be remembered for a disastrous public relations record that got him into hot water with Muslims, Jews, gays, native Indians, Poles, AIDS activists and even scientists.

Memories are still fresh of the fury the German Pope unleashed in the Muslim world with a speech in September 2006 in which he appeared to endorse the view of an obscure 14th-century Byzantine emperor that Islam is inherently violent.

The academic lecture sparked violent protests in several countries as well as attacks on Christian targets.

In 2009, the Pope struggled to mollify Jews after he invited a breakaway ultra-conservative faction back into the fold of the Roman Catholic Church by lifting the excommunication of four bishops, including one who insists that no one died in Nazi gas chambers.

Just weeks later Benedict added AIDS activists to the list of groups he has angered.

On a trip to Africa, the region hardest hit by the AIDS pandemic, he said that condom use could be aggravating the crisis.

Born on April 16, 1927, in Marktl am Inn, in the predominantly Catholic southern German region of Bavaria, he was the son of a policeman.

Ratzinger gravitated gradually towards the priesthood, entering a seminary in 1939, the same year he was required to join the Hitler Youth movement.

He was ordained priest at the same time as his older brother Georg in 1951, and began teaching theology at Freising College in 1958.

Ratzinger went on from there to teach at several other German universities, notably in Bonn, Meunster and Regensburg.

The brilliant scholar caught the eye of Cologne Archbishop Joseph Frings, a cardinal who brought him to Rome to work as an adviser to the Second Vatican Council, hammering out modernisation reforms from 1962 to 1965.

Pope Paul VI named Ratzinger archbishop of Munich in 1977 and made him a cardinal the same year.

The four-year stint in Munich was his only real pastoral experience before he became Pope.

It was during the 1978 conclave of cardinals to elect a successor to Paul VI that Ratzinger got to know Karol Wojtyla, the future John Paul II.

Three years later he agreed to head the Vatican's doctrinal congregation.

One of his first moves was to spearhead opposition to liberation theology, the movement with Marxist overtones that swept Latin America in the 1970s.

It focuses on Christ as the liberator of the oppressed and emphasises the Christian mission of bringing justice to the poor and oppressed, particularly through political activism.

A quiet, almost shy person, Benedict never succeeded in generating the fervour enjoyed by John Paul II.

Instead, he shunned rock star status, once describing himself as "just the vicar" at the Roman Catholic Church's periodic World Youth Days.

The Polish Pope was greeted with enthusiasm bordering on hysteria at these events, and he did little to dampen down the adulation, to the consternation of some in the Church hierarchy.

The intellectual Benedict, an accomplished pianist, was a prolific writer.

Apart from three encyclicals, or instructions to the Roman Catholic flock, he wrote around 40 other works including a best-seller, "Jesus of Nazareth," that contested political interpretations of Christ's role.

A

19.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Rebels seize Syria's largest dam: watchdog

REBELS have seized control of the largest dam in Syria, a vital barrier along the Euphrates River in the northern province of Raqa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.

"The rebels took control of the dam, which is still in operation. They are guarding both entrances but have forbidden the fighters from staying inside for fear the regime will bomb it," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said on Monday.

"This is the biggest economic loss for the regime since the start of the revolution," Abdel Rahman said of the hydraulic dam, which generates 880 megawatts of power.

He noted that while the rebels had entered the control rooms, they quickly left for fear that regime forces would retaliate by bombing the dam, possibly flooding surrounding villages.

According to the ministry of water resources website, the Euphrates dam is 4.5 kilometres long, 19 metres high and 512 metres wide.

It holds back Lake Assad - named for Hafez al-Assad, the father and predecessor of the current president Bashar al-Assad - a 14.1 billion cubic metre body of water.

Rebels from the jihadist Al-Nusra Front and the Awayis al-Qurani and Ahrar al-Tabqa battalions also took over three districts in the adjacent town of Tabaqa inhabited by the employees and their families, the Observatory said.

The watchdog noted that the fighters met little resistance in the town, while loyalist security chiefs had fled on board military helicopters from the local airbase.

19.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Government must close MRRT loophole: Evans

THE federal government must close a loophole in the mining tax that allows states to gouge the tax's revenue by raising royalties, a former federal minister says.

In response to an audience question on Q&A on Monday, Senator Chris Evans said the loophole was a problem.

"It's got to be fixed in my view and I think there's a process now with the states, " Mr Evans said.

Under the minerals resource rent tax the Commonwealth reimburses miners for any increases in state royalties.

The outgoing Labor senator said state governments were doing whatever they could to undermine the controversial tax.

"State level governments immediately abandoned the rhetoric and pushed up their royalties so the argument that somehow companies couldn't afford it went out the window," he said. '

In parliament earlier on Monday the Australian Greens put forward a bill to close the loophole and raise an additional $2.2 billion over the forward estimates and $3 billion by 2016-17.

But Minerals Council of Australia chief executive officier Mitch Hooke says fully crediting royalties was a key feature of the minerals resource rent tax's design, to avoid double taxation.

"Enough is enough," Mr Hooke said in a statement about what he called the continued obsession with increasing taxes on mining.

19.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Opera House turns red for Chinese New Year

THE Sydney Opera House has turned red to mark the start of Chinese New Year and recognise the contribution of Chinese Australians to the state.

The iconic building turned from white to red when NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell and consul general of the People's Republic of China Duan Jielong sounded a gong on Sydney Harbour for the start of the year of the snake.

Mr O'Farrell, who was dressed in a traditional Chinese black satin shirt, said NSW had the largest population of Chinese Australians.

"This is a great opportunity to celebrate China's contribution to our economy," the NSW premier told reporters on Sunday.

"More importantly the significant contribution that Chinese Australians citizens have made to the development of this state and this city for more than 200 years."

It's been estimated that 80,000 Chinese tourists are spending Chinese New Year in Australia and especially in Sydney.

"The Sydney Opera is a world renowned architectural masterpiece and symbol of Australia in the eyes of many Chinese people," Mr Duan said.

"Therefore I'm sure this beautiful message of friendship will be well received and cherished by Chinese people around the world."

Despite the rain, tourists and Sydney residents went to Sydney Harbour to take pictures of the red Opera House.

19.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Second suicide bombing rocks northern Mali

The northern Malian city of Gao has been shaken by a large explosion, Malian military sources say. Source: AAP

NORTHERN Mali's largest city was rocked by its second suicide bombing in two days, a soldier said on Sunday, as Islamist rebels continued defying a security lock-down on territory reclaimed by French-led forces.

The twin suicide blasts, the first such attacks in Mali, underlined the threat of a drawn-out insurgency as France, whose warplanes were still bombing northern territory Sunday morning, tries to map an exit strategy nearly one month into its intervention in its former colony.

The bomber blew himself up late Saturday at the same army checkpoint in Gao where the first such attack occurred the day before.

His severed head was still lying on the ground Sunday morning.

Witnesses said Malian troops and Islamist fighters had also exchanged gunfire after the blast. French military helicopters could be heard in the air after the bombing.

No one else was wounded in the attack, said a soldier at the checkpoint, where troops had already placed two walls of sandbags, cut down trees to increase visibility and set up heavy machine guns to protect themselves after Friday's attack.

The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), one of the Islamist groups that seized control of northern Mali for 10 months in the wake of a military coup, claimed the first attack and had threatened earlier Saturday that there would be more.

"We are dedicating ourselves to carrying out more attacks against France and its allies. We ask the local population to stay far away from military zones and avoid explosions," spokesman Abou Walid Sahraoui said.

The army closed the road where the blast occurred, which leads from Gao to Bourem and Kidal, two other key towns in the region.

French warplanes bombed a government building early Sunday morning in the town of Gourma-Rharous, between Gao and Timbuktu to the northwest, a local official said.

The building "held vehicles and military equipment belonging to the Islamists," the official said on condition of anonymity. "Three Islamist vehicles were destroyed."

The latest attack came as a report said several bodies, including those of three Arab shopkeepers recently arrested by Malian troops, had been discovered in a grave in Timbuktu.

The discovery was made Friday, Mauritanian online news agency ANI reported.

Timbuktu has been the scene of reprisal attacks by black Malians against Arab and Tuareg residents accused of supporting the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels.

Rights groups have already accused the Malian army of summary executions of Tuareg and Arabs and called on the government to protect them from reprisal attacks.

In the capital Bamako, a firefight Friday between rival army units killed two adolescents and wounded another 13 people, showing the deep divisions in the Malian military.

Paratroopers loyal to ex-president Amadou Toumani Toure, ousted in a March 2012 coup, were protesting an order absorbing them into other units to be sent to the frontline when the gunfight erupted.

The fighting overshadowed the arrival of 70 EU military trainers, the first of what is to be a 500-strong mission tasked with whipping the Malian army into shape.

19.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Man tried to kill with arrow: NSW police

A MAN has been charged with attempted murder after he allegedly attacked two men - firing a bow and arrow at one - on the NSW Mid North Coast.

A 42-year-old man was caring for his 93-year-old grandfather at a property at Aldavilla, Kempsey on Sunday morning.

Police will allege a 46-year-old man attacked the grandfather and was restrained by the grandson who forced him out of the house.

As one man attempted to close a bedroom window an arrow was fired through it, narrowly missing him, police allege.

The accused man was taken to Kempsey police station and charged with attempted murder.

Bail was refused and he is due to appear at Kempsey Local Court on Monday.

19.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Woman sells cigarettes at Sydney market

A WOMAN has been charged with selling cigarettes, with an estimated total value of $65,000, at a market stall in western Sydney.

Detectives visited the Blacktown Markets on Cricketers Arms Road on Sunday morning and will allege they were offered cigarettes by the woman operating the stall.

They raided the stall and the woman's car, allegedly finding 2799 packets of cigarettes of various brands.

Police also seized 18 bags of tobacco with an estimated value of $800.

Inquiries are being made about the ownership of the products.

A 33-year-old Bonnyrigg woman has been charged with selling tobacco product by retail from booth/tent.

She has been granted conditional bail to appear at Blacktown Local Court on February 28.

19.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Unidentified child found wandering alone

POLICE are searching for parents of a young child who was found wandering alone in the streets of Perth's east more than 24 hours ago.

The boy, who is about three-years-old, was found on Belgravia Street in Belmont at about midday on Friday.

He has not been able to provide his name or details of his parents or guardians, and is currently being cared for by the Department for Child Protection (DCP).

Neither the DCP nor police have received any reports of a missing child.

Police have now released a picture of the boy, who has short brown hair, brown eyes and a light olive complexion.

He has limited speech.

Anyone able to identify the boy should contact the Department's Crisis Care Unit on 9223 1111.

19.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Tunisia ruling Islamists call for rally

MEMBERS of Tunisia's main ruling Islamist party are calling for a rally in the capital on Saturday, a day after police clashed with protesters at the funeral of murdered opposition figure Chokri Belaid.

The Ennahda party demonstration was to take place in the centre of Tunis on Habib Bourguiba Avenue, where the latest violence has taken place, the party said in a statement.

The protest would "defend the legitimacy of the national constituent assembly," where the Ennahda-dominated coalition holds a majority, and would "fight against (the political) violence" it said the opposition is using.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets on Friday for the funeral procession of Belaid, who was killed by a lone gunman on Wednesday, and clashes with police led to 132 arrests, said the interior ministry.

The opposition blames Ennahda for the murder of the outspoken government critic, but the ruling party vehemently denies any involvement.

The unrest comes amid tension and division within Ennahda itself, after the recent sacking of the party's leader and as Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali attempts to form a new government of technocrats, which hardliners oppose.

19.19 | 0 komentar | Read More