The Brazilian government on Thursday said it could not interfere with a landmark EU law banning imports of commodities linked to deforestation, but plans to keep farming according to its own laws.
The law approved by the European Parliament on April 19 bans imports of coffee, beef, soy, palm oil, cocoa, rubber, wood and charcoal if they are linked to forest destruction, including deforestation-derived products such as leather, chocolate and furniture.
Surging deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has raised concerns in Europe in recent years and generated resistance in European legislatures to trade with the South American country.
Photo: AFP
Brazil’s agribusiness sector has said the country — which as a major soy, coffee and beef producer is one of the world’s largest food suppliers — already regulates deforestation under its forest code, which allows some areas to be cleared.
“Brazil cannot interfere in a decision taken by the European Union on products linked to deforestation. We will continue to act in accordance with Brazilian legislation,” Brazilian Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply Carlos Favaro told reporters.
Former Brazilian agriculture minister Roberto Rodriguez said the law amounts to a non-tariff trade barrier, calling it “exaggerated protectionism.”
He said the world needs to act to preserve the environment, but the EU was ignoring the laws of other nations and punishing producers who have complied with their own laws.
“This will not preserve anything in Brazil, it is a purely commercial measure,” Rodrigues said. “If preservation of the environment is so important, set up a mechanism to finance it instead of punishing those who did nothing illegal.”
The law, which has not yet been formally endorsed by the European Council, would require companies that sell goods into the EU to produce a due diligence statement and “verifiable” information proving that their goods were not grown on land deforested after 2020, or risk hefty fines.
The EU is the world’s third-largest palm oil importer. Indonesia and Malaysia — the world’s largest exporters — have accused it of blocking access to their products.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
RSS