Summary of newsmakers of the previous day – 27. 07. 2007

Controversial food dye E 128 will be forbiden from tomorrow

From tomorrow a regulation of the European Commission come in force in all member states, so also in the Czech Republic, which forbids use of potentially carcinogenic dye E 128, red G as food dye. A directress of a division of communication of the Ministry of Agriculture Ilona Chalupská informed on it today. According to her data this dye was permitted till this time only for so called breakfast sausages (meat products with a minimal content of cereal component 6 %) and hamburger meat with a minimal content of plant or cereal component 4 %.

Small breweries complain about Prazdroj, antimonopoly office does not agree

Small Czech breweries complain that they are hampered by the first on market Pilsner Prazdroj in supplies in dome restaurants and pubs. They claim that Pilsner brewery exceeds permitted limits for take-off of its beer. However, the Office for the Protection of Competition did not found out any faults. The Antimonopoly Office permitted last year to Prazdroj that it can close contracts on minimal yearly purchase of beer with restaurants. In practice it means that the brewery can ask the inn-holders to buy from it a certain amount, however, maximally 70 percent of beer. Remaining 30 percent has to stay for other suppliers.

AP: European Commission accused importers of bananas of practicing cartel

Importers of bananas Fyffes and Dole Food received a document from the European Commission in which Brussels accuses them of practising a cartel. According the Commission these firms set a unified policy in sale of bananas in the north of Europe whereby they committed illegal act. It was reported by an agency AP. The European Commission refused to confirm the information which it does always when it is dealt only with a suspicion. In June 2005 offices made a round-up in European offices of several importers of bananas and if the Commission found that the examining firms really participated in a cartel, it can impose a fine to them in height of as much as ten percent of their yearly takings.

Raids of Polish pickers devastate mountains

Five o'clock in the morning. Outside it starts to dawn and guards of Krkonoše National Park (KRNAP) assemble near the Center of Field Service in Pec pod Sněžkou to set off to a planned patrol of their ward. Main task? To disturb blueberry pickers which do not keep a regulation forbidding free movement beyond marked path and devastate growth of blueberry in valuable localities. “Today it will be good. It's raining, so they certainly stay at home”, Ivo Tásler guesses the situation. He serves at the same time in area of Pomezní Boudy and Sněžka. This morning he came to help his colleagues in Pec pod Sněžkou. Together they will browse a locality between Světlá and Černá hora. The area where there are the ripest blueberries now.