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Food horror spreads
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BRITAIN'S foot-and-mouth crisis entered its third week yesterday with a major food supplier announcing big hikes in meat prices and Prince Charles warning the disaster could drive farmers to suicide.
As the crisis spread rapidly at home and abroad, France banned exports of animals at risk, other European countries tested their livestock and Asian states cut meat imports from Europe.
France, which at the weekend found traces of the highly contagious disease in slaughtered imported British sheep, also suspended the transport of all cloven-hoofed animals -- except to slaughterhouses -- for the next two weeks.
“There is a considerable potential risk. It could be a new tragedy for French farmers,” Farm Minister Jean Glavany said on Monday.
Italy said it would urge the European Union yesterday to close all national borders to imports and exports of livestock susceptible to foot-and-mouth disease.
However, tests on suspect livestock in France, Denmark and Belgium proved negative on Monday, meaning no case of the financially devastating disease has yet been confirmed in live animals on continental Europe.
Authorities throughout Europe have adopted a raft of measures to try to keep the disease at bay, effectively putting Britain in quarantine.
Many sports events were cancelled, including horse-racing fixtures in the suburbs of Paris, rugby union matches in Ireland, even an international off-road motorcycling championship on the Channel island of Guernsey, in a bid to stop mass movements of people spreading the disease.
(SD-Agencies)
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