The threat stems from a decision by the European Union almost two years ago to ban the import of certain animal parts from Brazil that bore the risk of spreading mad cow disease. The Swiss are bound by European food protection laws even though the
country is not in the EU.
The casing of Switzerland's favourite sausage is made from the intestines of the Brazilian zebu, a hump-backed ox of Asian origin but now found widely in South America.
Rolf Buettiker, president of an association whose members include 1,500 butchers, said the 7.5 million Swiss consumed an estimated 160 million cervelas a year, more than 27,000 tons, or approaching 25 sausages per person, and requiring more than 13,000 miles of zebu intestine.
"Cervelas is the Swiss national sausage," he said.
The name cervelas (pronounced sair-vuh-LAH) is derived from cerebellum, Latin for brain, since the sausage originally consisted of pork and pigs' brain. Today it is made of beef, bacon and pork rind.
The use of zebu intestine as a casing was driven by the need of supermarkets for cervelas that were uniform in colour, size and flavour and the rising cost of cattle intestines in Switzerland, where farmers were increasingly unwilling to clean the innards of their slaughtered cattle for the sausage industry.
Swiss diplomats are negotiating with the European Union to seek an exemption for zebu intestines.
JAPANThe Iriomote wildcat is said to have roamed the small subtropical island of the same name in the East China Sea for 200,000 years, but was so elusive that it was not discovered until 1967. To this day, many islanders have never seen the wildcat, and some even deny its existence.
One of the world's rarest wildcats, it survives only on Iriomote, one of Japan's most far-flung islands. Almost indistinguishable from a house cat, the Iriomote cat is believed to be related to a leopard cat found on the Asian mainland, to which this island was once linked.
In a highly urbanised country, Iriomote can be reached only after a 35-minute ferry ride from neighbouring Ishigaki Island and has a single main road hugging just half its coastline.
Residents and tourists have increased in number in recent years, drawn by the island's wilderness and by the wildcat itself, known here as the "mountain cat". The encroaching development has added urgency to efforts to save the wildcat as Japan's environmental authorities raised it one notch on a list of endangered species.
Researchers completing a census are worried that the wildcat's population has fallen below the 100 estimated more than a decade ago.
"It's facing its biggest crisis ever," said Masako Izawa, a wildcat expert at the University of the Ryukyus on Okinawa's main island.
Like other researchers, Izawa, 53, has spent years studying the animal without actually being able to see it, relying instead on photographs, videos and other second-hand evidence.
INDIAThousands of goats that provide fine wool for Kashmir's famous Pashmina shawls are facing death because of heavy snow in India's mountainous Ladakh region. Nearly 100,000 Pashmina goats have been affected by a shortage of food because winter pastures near the Chinese border have been covered.
Dr Tsering Phuntsog, chief animal husbandry officer in the region, said: "There is a strong possibility that many goats might perish if supplies don't reach them immediately."
A local government official said: "This is the heaviest snowfall in the last three decades in the region. Being a cold desert, Ladakh usually receives about four inches of precipitation in a year, but this year about two feet of snow has accumulated."
SERBIAA ban on grumpiness, gossiping, mini-skirts and rudeness is what the doctor orders to improve patient care in Serbia's hospitals, according to new rules issued by the country's Health Ministry. Its website says staff are not allowed to criticise their hospital or their superiors, and should not accept bribes for their services.
"There needs to be ground rules for decency," a ministry spokesman said.
Serbia's public health system crumbled during the conflicts of the 1990s, with patients' relatives having to provide everything from bandages and antibiotics to food.
COMING UPPolar bears are the in thing. At the Nuremburg Toy Fair this week, a number of manufacturers will announce the release of toys featuring Flocke, the baby bear rescued from her mother by zookeepers in the city last month.
The first products will be produced by the Fuerth-based firm Noris, which plans to bring out a Flocke-based board game this month. By the end of March, Noris plans to release four jigsaw puzzles with motifs of the cub.
Around the same time, the Nuremburg-based manufacturer Creativ plans to release its own line of Flocke games, the company said.
In May, the manufacturer Steiff will begin selling a variety of Flocke stuffed animals – not to be mistaken for its well-known Knut teddy bears, based on Berlin's celebrity polar bear.
REALLY?Two Komodo dragons have hatched at the Sedgwick County Zoo in Kansas, apparently without the fertilisation of a male.
The new-born dragons, both males, are believed to be the first in North America known to have hatched by parthenogenesis, which occurs naturally in some species, including invertebrates and lower plants. It happens more rarely in some vertebrates.
The zoo in Wichita is having DNA testing done to document the mother's and the babies' genetic structure because of the remote chance that a male's sperm was stored on the female's body.
MOVERS & SHAKERSSIENNA MILLARA Spanish clothing company is suing a charter airline for failing to deliver British actress Sienna Miller – "the face" of its company – to New York City from London for a photo shoot. In a lawsuit filed last week in Manhattan federal court, Pepe Jeans said it paid Jet Set Private Air Service $160,000 for a chartered plane that would deliver Sienna Miller, right, along with the actress's associates, to a New Jersey airport.
SIMON MANNSimon Mann, the British mercenary accused of attempting to stage a coup in Equatorial Guinea, was paraded on the country's national TV last week, after he was handed over by the government of Zimbabwe.
Mann, in handcuffs, was made to walk in front of the camera wearing a grey prison jumpsuit during a TV broadcast in which a government spokesman announced he would be tried there for a 2004 coup plot.
Mann, 54, was secretly extradited from Zimbabwe one week ago without his lawyer's knowledge. The British special forces agent was arrested along with 70 others, mostly former soldiers, when their plane arrived in Zimbabwe to collect weapons bought from the Zimbabwe state arms maker. They were found with uniforms identical to those of Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema's presidential guard.
Equatorial Guinea alleges that Mann's friend Mark Thatcher, the son of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, commissioned the bid to overthrow Obiang's 29-year regime and install an opposition politician. The country is Africa's third-largest oil producer. In the televised statement, government spokesman Santiago Efuman said Mann had been handed over to Equatorial Guinea on February 2 by Zimbabwe "so that he could be tried". Mann has denied preparing a coup, saying the planeload of soldiers were headed to Congo to guard a mining operation.
CHERCher, left, is hitting Las Vegas after 25 albums that have sold more than 100 million copies and a career that has included concerts, recordings, Broadway, TV, film acting directing, and books. She has announced that she will be one of the headline acts at Caesars Palace, beginning a three-year, 200-show engagement on May 6.
"I started in Vegas at Caesars, so I've come full circle," she said. "I'm back, and I plan to give my fans the best experience yet. I think everybody knows I only do things in a big way."
The full article contains 1364 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
