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 Paris-based OIE (Animal Health Organization) is expected to declare 10 states of Brazil, including the Federal District of Brasília, free of foot and mouth disease with vaccination.
The decision was communicated this week to Agriculture minister Reinhold Stephanes by the Brazilian delegation participating in the 76th General assembly of OIE.
The states involved are Bahia, Espírito Santo, Goiás, Mato Grosso, Minas Gerais, Paraná, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Sergipe, Tocantins plus the Federal District.
Inácio Kroetz, who heads the Brazilian delegation to the OIE meeting, said further information on the state of Mato Grosso do Sul was requested at OIE, which has been delivered.
This is interpreted as a positive signal since an assessment is scheduled for next July by OIE experts and could mean Mato Grosso do Sul could finally be also included in the list free of the FAM virus with vaccination.
"The main result of this coming announcement from OIE will be the reopening of markets for Brazilian beef, and this should help to boost prices of livestock," said minister Stephanes.
Luciano Vaccari, president of the Mato Grosso do Sul Livestock breeders said that "OIE approval will leave no doubts about the sanitary condition of our herds and this will force the European Union to review its decision regarding the ban on Brazilian beef".
Forced by strong cattle breeders lobbies from Ireland and UK, the EC is demanding strict traceability conditions on Brazilian livestock and beef.
In related news and after years of diplomatic wrangling, South Korea announced Thursday that it will start inspecting US beef imports. The move will lead to a full resumption of US beef imports for the first time in four years.
A case of mad cow disease in Washington state prompted South Korea to close its doors to imports. Some eight months ago South Korea suspended quarantine inspections after fragments of banned vertebral bones were found in beef shipments from the US.
An official notice by the South Korean Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries minister on resumption of US beef imports will take effect the moment it is published in the government gazette.
"New beef import terms will be published in the official gazette two or three days later," said Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Chung Woon-chun.
Mercopress
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The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
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A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.
Costa
hehehe