2011-03-24 08:54

 

U.S. curbs Japan food imports

The United States became the first nation to block some food imports from Japan.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administrations aid it was stopping imports of milk, vegetable and fruit from four prefectures in the vicinity of the crippled nuclear plant.

South Korea may be next to ban Japanese food after the world's worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl in 1986. France this week asked the European Commission to look into harmonising controls on radioactivity in imports from Japan.

Food made up just 0.6 percent of Japan's total exports last year.

Authorities said above-safety radiation levels had been discovered in 11 types of vegetables from the area, in addition to milk and water.

Officials still insisted, however, that there was no major danger to humans and urged the world not to over react.

"We will explain to countries the facts and we hope they will take logical measures based on them," Japan's chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano, who has been the government's public face during the disaster, told a news conference.

Japan has already halted shipment of some food from the area and told people there to stop eating leafy vegetables.