Feta cheese, Parma ham, French cognac and Belgium’s sour lambic beers are the latest cause of indigestion in Brexit talks, after the EU stepped up demands on the UK to legislate to preserve the status of European speciality produce.

EU special status for regional food and drink has emerged as a new sticking point in the negotiations, following a bad-tempered week of discussions in which the two sides clashed over the Galileo satellite system, and the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, told the UK government to stop playing “hide and seek” over its goals.

In a demand likely to infuriate Brexiter backbenchers, the European commission is calling on the British parliament to legislate to protect a few thousand protected food and drink products from copycats. The EU wants the UK to adopt a near equivalent to its system of “geographical indications” – labels that protect a product linked to a region. Barnier has said geographical indications are among the issues that must be settled before the UK can have an exit deal, including a 21-month transition period.

But after fractious talks in Brussels last week, a senior EU official said they were proving to be another “difficult issue … where the UK has no position”. “At the moment, we do not have any indication if they intend to protect geographical indications on their market beyond Brexit,” they said. An EU position paper published last September said “necessary [UK] domestic legislation” must be “comparable to that provided by union law”.(theguardian)…[+]

New Zealand will become the first country in the world to try to eradicate the cow disease Mycoplasma bovis, culling tens of thousands of cows in the largest mass animal slaughter in the country’s history. Government and farming sector leaders have agreed to cull 126,000 cows and spend more than NZ$800m ($560m) over 10 years in an attempt to save the national dairy herd and protect the long-term productivity of the farming sector, which is New Zealand’s second biggest export earner. Mycoplasma bovis was first detected in New Zealand in July last year, and manifests in mastitis in cows, severe pneumonia, ear infections and other symptoms.

Since it was first discovered, 26,000 cows have been culled, and the disease is classified as “active” on 37 properties. Despite initially being contained to farms in the South Island, the disease has continued to spread and reached the North Island earlier this year. New Zealand police have launched a combined investigation with the Ministry of Primary Industries into how the disease made its way to New Zealand, and leapt between the two islands.

Prime minister Jacinda Ardern said: “This is a tough call – no one ever wants to see mass culls. But the alternative is to risk the spread of the disease across our national herd. We have a real chance of eradication to protect our more than 20,000 dairy and beef farms, but only if we act now.(theguardian)…[+]

Colombians have failed to elect a president outright, setting the stage for a bitter runoff between two frontrunners from opposite ends of the political spectrum, while a peace process with leftist rebels hangs in the balance.Iván Duque, a hardline conservative who viscerally opposes the peace accord, took the largest share of the vote on Sunday with 39%, though fell short of the 50% required to win at the first round. Instead, he will face Gustavo Petro – a leftwinger and former mayor of Bogotá, who came second with 25% – in the second round on 17 June.Petro, himself once a guerrilla, was Colombia’s first progressive candidate in generations and had been expected to gain a larger share. But a third candidate, the more moderate Sergio Fajardo, appeared to siphon off Petro’s support, receiving 23%. It remains to be seen if Fajardo, a reformer and former mayor of Medellín, will back Petro in the second round.The two other candidates, Germán Vargas Lleras and Humberto de la Calle, were unable to muster 10% of the vote between them.(theguardian)…[+]