U.S. beef totaling 129 tons fails quarantine checks

SEOUL, May 5 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's quarantine authorities said Tuesday that
nearly 129 tons of U.S. beef have failed to clear quarantine inspections since
Seoul resumed imports late last year.
South Korea lifted a ban on U.S. beef imports in November 2008, nearly seven
months after the two countries concluded a new deal that eased restrictions
considerably.
The National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service said 128.7 tons of U.S.
beef imports were disqualified between November and March this year, as they
either had decayed, had no U.S. export quarantine certificate or failed to meet
import sanitation requirements.
"Importers will be required to return, bury, or incinerate the disqualified beef
imports," an official of the service said.
South Korea first banned imports of U.S. beef in December 2003, when the United
States confirmed its first case of mad cow disease. Imports resumed in October
2006, but Seoul suspended quarantine inspections after banned backbones were
detected in a shipment in October 2007.
In April last year, Seoul and Washington signed a new import agreement. But
massive street protests against the deal across South Korea prompted the two
sides to hold additional talks, in which they agreed to limit imports to meat
from cattle under 30 months old, deemed less vulnerable to mad cow disease.
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