Around the world

beef imports due

to fears of mad cow

TOKYO — Just 5 1/2 weeks after lifting its ban on U.S. beef, Japan slammed the door shut again Friday, saying a recent shipment contained material it considered at risk for mad cow disease.

"This is a pity given that imports had just resumed,” Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters. "I received the agriculture minister’s report over the telephone with his recommendation that the imports be halted and I think it is a good idea.”

The Japanese government plans to halt the imports until it receives a report from the U.S. government on how the risky material got into the shipment, an Agriculture Ministry statement said.

The statement said ministry inspectors found material from cattle backbone in three out of 41 boxes in a 858 pound shipment of beef from Atlantic Veal & Lamb Inc. All of the beef in the shipment was destroyed, the statement said.

In Washington, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said the U.S. government is investigating the shipment and investigators are being dispatched to Japan. He also said the plant that exported the meat in question is now barred from shipping more beef to Japan and the government inspector who cleared the shipment may be disciplined. Extra inspectors are also being sent to every plant that exports meat to Japan and unannounced inspections have been ordered, Johans said.

"We take this matter very seriously,” the secretary said in a statement. "We are in communication with Japanese officials and we will continue that dialogue to assure them that we take this matter very seriously and we are acting swiftly and firmly.”

Japan originally had imposed the ban in December 2003 after the discovery of the first case of mad cow disease in the U.S. Less than six weeks ago, on Dec. 12, 2005, it agreed to allow a resumption of imports, but only from cows aged 20 months or younger, which are believed unlikely to have the disease. The deal also excluded spines, brains, bone marrow and other parts of cattle thought to be at particularly high risk of containing the disease.

Koizumi said he directed Japan’s agriculture and health ministers to talk with the U.S. side to put measures into place that would guarantee the safety of beef sent to Japan.

Before the ban that ended last December, the Japanese market for American beef was worth some $1.4 billion in 2003.

After the ban was lifted, U.S. beef began making a limited return to local supermarket shelves and restaurant menus.

Most major supermarket chains have been taking a wait-and-see approach.

Furthermore, Japanese consumers still seem to be wary of American beef.

A Kyodo News survey last month showed about 75 percent of Japanese are unwilling to eat U.S. beef because of mad cow fears, compared with 21 percent saying they would consume it.

The import statistics seem to reflect this caution. Japan imported a total of 745 tons of beef from the U.S. in the first month after the ban was partially lifted, less than 4 percent of what it imported before the ban, Kyodo said last week.

American beef producers have been predicting it will take at least three years to reach the shipment levels seen before the 2003 import ban.

U.S. lawmakers have been pressing Japan to allow beef from cattle that has been slaughtered at up to 30 months of age, as called for under international animal health guidelines.

Japanese Agriculture Minister Shoichi Nakagawa rejected those demands Wednesday, saying Japan could not accept such a change to the terms of the agreement.

Mad cow disease is the common name for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, a degenerative nerve disease in cattle that is linked to a rare but fatal nerve disorder in humans, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

Negotiators, clerics work

to free American hostage

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. negotiators were working around the clock to secure the release of hostage American journalist Jill Carroll as a deadline set by militants threatening to kill her passed Friday with no word on her fate.

Muslims from Baghdad to Paris urged the militants to free the 28-year-old woman and end Iraq’s wave of kidnappings. More than 240 foreigners have been taken captive and at least 39 killed since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Carroll was seized in a rough Baghdad neighborhood on Jan. 7 by gunmen who killed her translator. The Sunni Arab politician she had gone to interview urged her release and demanded that U.S. forces stop detaining Iraqi women.

Election results: Sunnis

gain, Shiites will need to form coalition government

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Shiite religious parties captured the biggest number of parliament seats in last month’s election but not enough to govern without partners, according to results released Friday.

Sunni Arabs scored major gains, opening the door to a greater role in government for the community at the heart of the insurgency.

The announcement by the election commission launched a period of tough bargaining among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions to form a government, which U.S. officials hope can win the trust of the disaffected Sunni Arab minority so U.S. and other foreign troops can go home.

Man who shot Pope

John Paul II back in jail

ANKARA, Turkey — The man who shot Pope John Paul II returned to prison Friday, after an appeals court ruled that he should serve more time for the killing of a Turkish journalist and other crimes.

Mehmet Ali Agca did not resist arrest hours earlier when police knocked on his Istanbul apartment door following the court’s ruling.

"I was waiting for you,” he told the officers, according to private NTV television.

He was driven to Kartal prison, the same Istanbul lockup that he was released from eight days ago.

The panel of appeals court judges overturned a lower court’s ruling that set Agca free on Jan. 12. He had served 19 years in an Italian prison for the 1981 attack on the pope and then another 5 1/2 years of a 10-year sentence in Turkey for murdering Turkish journalist Abdi Ipekci in 1979.<