South Korea and the US neared an agreement to renew imports of US beef, aimed at defusing a political crisis in Seoul over fears of mad cow disease, officials said yesterday.
The comments came a day after South Korean President Lee Myung-bak pledged to keep US beef out of South Korea unless Washington limits exports to younger cattle — considered less at risk for mad cow disease — seeking to placate protesters who have held daily anti-government demonstrations.
The two sides “neared a result that can satisfy each other,” the South’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement after the talks between South Korean Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon and his US counterpart Susan Schwab ended in Washington.
Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young said South Korea is expected to announce the details today after Kim reports to Lee and consults with related ministries.
“We have made good progress this week and are close to reaching a mutually agreeable path forward,” the US trade representative’s spokeswoman Gretchen Hamel said in Washington.
While both governments have said they will not renegotiate an earlier agreement reopening South Korea’s market to US meat, US suppliers were expected to voluntarily pledge not to export beef from older cattle.
About 120 South Korean meat importers said yesterday that they would only import US beef from cattle less than 30 months old to maintain the public’s trust.
“We will ensure that the US beef older than 30 months would not be distributed” in South Korea, Park Chang-gyu, president of the Meat Import Association, said in a statement.
In a nationally televised address on Thursday, Lee said he will “ensure that US beef older than 30 months will not be put on our dinner tables as long as people don’t want it.”
The South Korean leader said he told US President George W. Bush earlier this month that South Korea “would not be able to import US beef” if his demands to block beef from older cattle were not accepted.
South Korea suspended imports of US beef after the first case of mad cow disease appeared in December 2003, closing what had been the third-largest foreign market for the US.
Lee also apologized over his April decision to allow resumed imports of US beef, saying he thought it would help passage of a broader free-trade deal with the US.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS