OSLO: The Norwegian Food Safety Authority said yesterday it would file a police complaint against a food company after finding large quantities of pork in its halal-labelled products. Kebab meat sold by Norwegian group Kuraas to restaurants contained between five and 30 percent pork even though it was marked as halal, the agency found. “We will file a complaint against the producer,” Catherine Signe Svinland, an adviser at the food safety watchdog, said. “In a halal product, there should be no pork at all and when we find such quantities ... we don’t believe it’s an accident but it is in fact fraud,” she said.
The group denied any wrongdoing, Norwegian media reported. “We buy huge quantities of halal meat and we can show invoices corresponding to what we bought and sold,” marketing manager Kenneth Kuraas told news agency NTB.
“Pork ending up in these products is simply due to routines not being followed,” he added. The Food and Safety Authority also said it had found more than 60 percent pork in pizza meat sold by another Norwegian company.
Bus crash kills 24
in South Africa
CAPE TOWN: Twenty-four people were killed in South Africa yesterday when a double-decker bus carrying a church group crashed in a mountainous pass near Cape Town. Rescue teams had to use a crane to lift the bus and cut away bodywork to extract victims trapped in the overturned wreckage in the Hex River pass. “Twenty-three died on the scene and one person on the way to hospital,” said Faiza Steyn, Western Cape health spokeswoman. Two of the dead were children. Forty-five injured people were taken to hospital.
Heavy snow causes chaos in Slovakia
BRATISLAVA: Heavy snowfall caused travel chaos in Slovakia yesterday and left some 19,000 households without power in eastern regions, local media reported. More than 25 centimetres (10 inches) of fresh snow and blizzard conditions closed parts of a highway connecting the capital Bratislava in western Slovakia with the eastern city of Kosice, Slovakia’s second largest. Local roads and border crossings with neighbouring Poland and Hungary have also been closed. Hundreds of cars were trapped on roads and trains were delayed.
Romanian judges detained over graft
BUCHAREST: Two Romanian judges were arrested yesterday on charges of seeking tens of thousands of euros in exchange for helping to set free several detainees. Viorica Dinu and Antonela Costache of the Bucharest court are accused of agreeing to take ¤150,000 ($196,000) in January, promising to intercede with other judges in favour of a Romanian businessman, Dinel Nutu, detained over fraud.
Prosecutors said the manoeuvre failed so the two judges handed back ¤55,000 euros they had received in advance from Nutu’s brother.
Agencies
