A new step forward in the campaign for raw-milk cheese

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has now been signed, recognising France's system of sanitary inspection and certification

Signed on Monday 15 December 2008, in Paris, by French Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Michel Barnier, and his Australian counterpart, represented by Australian Ambassador to France, David Ritchie, the MoU makes official the opening of the Australian market to Roquefort cheese, which was granted in September 2005 after many years of negotiation. The addition of a clause to the text prepared in 2005 also means that exporters of Roquefort cheese, so far the only soft raw-milk cheese allowed to be sold in Australia, will be able to rely in Australia on the results of E.coli tests performed by approved French laboratories.

Michel Barnier welcomed the trust shown by Australian authorities in France's system of sanitary inspection and certification and in the quality of Roquefort cheese production. This traditional product is a good example of how food safety can be ensured while retaining a gastronomic heritage of world renown.

Taken from the EU news bulletin of 8 January 2009

Melbourne secures more major international events

Melbourne has won the rights to host the World Human Resources Congress in 2012, at the new Melbourne Convention Centre, Skills and Workforce Participation Minister Jacinta Allan announced.

Ms Allan said the World Human Resources Congress would attract 2500 delegates to Melbourne and inject more than $5 million into the state’s economy.

“The Victorian Government is taking action to secure major events which drive economic growth and attract new tourism opportunities. The Human Resources Congress will boost Melbourne’s international status as a hub for business and business events,” Ms Allan said.

“Melbourne has been chosen to host this event because of our innovative marketing and bidding strategies. Our world-class new Melbourne Convention Centre, has already attracted 44 international conventions, bringing more than 86,000 delegates to the city.

“This is a great win for Victoria, the Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI) and the Melbourne Convention Visitors Bureau (MCVB), whose partnership has secured the event for Melbourne & Australia in 2012.

AHRI president Peter Wilson said the World Human Resources Congress was the most significant human resources event in the world.

“Hosting the ‘Olympics’ of Human Resource conventions establishes Melbourne as a world leader in this important field,” Mr Wilson said.

“It is very exciting to have worked with MCVB and the Victorian Government to confirm Melbourne as the host city for this 2012 World HR Congress. It comes after nearly two years of careful preparation, sustained international advocacy, and competitive selection processes.

“Melbourne is the standout choice among leading world cities to attract international speakers and thousands of delegates to this Congress from Europe, Africa, North and South America, and our own Asia Pacific region.”

MCVB chief executive Sandra Chipchase said the Congress was a strong example of Melbourne’s ability to attract large international business events.

“Winning the right to host the congress against international and domestic competition underscores Melbourne’s exceptional bidding strategies, which are strengthened by the support of the Victorian Government in attracting business events to Melbourne,” Ms Chipchase said.

Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre chief executive Leigh Harry said the flexibility of the new centre and its outstanding design would bring ongoing advantages to attracting international Business Events to Melbourne.

Taken from Invest Victoria Press Release dated 23 December 2008. To read the full version visit: http://www.investvictoria.com/231208MelbourneSecuresMoreInternationalEvents

Emirates launches its third daily service out of Melbourne...and onto Paris

Anyone wishing they were in Paris now has one more reason to dream. Starting from 3 February, 2009, Emirates will offer a third daily direct service between Melbourne and Dubai, from where travellers can easily hop on to a connecting flight to Paris. The decision by Emirates to add another daily flight between the two cities comes 13 years after the carrier first began flights from Melbourne to Paris.

Dean Cleaver, Emirates’ Sales Manager for Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory, said “Emirates’ first Australian destination was Melbourne, in 1996, and Emirates remains committed to this market, now offering the community three travel options a day.”

Tourism Victoria chief executive Gregory Hywood said the move was a welcome boost on the back of record passenger numbers at Melbourne airport. “The local tourism industry can look forward to receiving an extra 1800 inbound business and travel passengers per week,” Hywood said.

Emirates, a corporate member and long-time supporter of FACCI Victoria, will operate its new Melbourne non-stop service to and from Dubai with its state-of-the-art Airbus A340-500. This offers passengers 12 luxurious First Class Private Suites, 42 seats in Business Class and generous space for 204 passengers in economy.

This article is based on “Emirates adds Melbourne flight” by Michael Bruce, published online by Travel Weekly on 25 July 2008, and an Emirates Press Release published on 3 February 2009.

Increase in household access to computers and Internet in Australia
« Nouvelles économiques d’Australie, Nouvelle-Zélande et du Pacifique Sud »
Published by the French Trade Commission

Between 1998 and 2008, the number of internet connections in Australia increased five-fold. In June 2008, three quarters of Australian households, equivalent to 6.2 million people, had access to a computer, 5.5 million of whom had an internet connection. 4.3 million of these connections were via broadband, representing 52% of households. In fact, in 2007-08, 800 000 Australians adopted a broadband connection.

In terms of the geographical distribution of these connections, the ACT is the region with the greatest proportion of broadband internet connections (68%), in contrast to Tasmania and South Australia which recorded the lowest levels of broadband penetration (39% and 42% respectively).

It should be noted that certain socio-economic characteristics of households also strongly influence their ability to access a computer, the internet and a broadband connection. Indeed metropolitan areas, households with children less than 15 years old, or with a salary of less than AU$120 000, have a much higher level of broadband access than regional areas, couples without children or low-income households.

Translated from French into English from an article published by the French Trade Commission.

French to answer the big food questions

A pioneering research centre is to open in France in an attempt to answer questions that have haunted cooks for centuries: what makes a good meal and how can we make children eat vegetables?

The project, which has an official stamp of approval from the French Government, aims to provide what may be the first objective analysis of diners’ likes and dislikes.

The ultra-modern centre created by Paul Bocuse, France’s top chef, will try to find out how taste, smell, décor, waiters, conversation and other factors affect the pleasure of food. The upshot should be a theory of eating to help all professional cooks.

Hervé Fleury, the director of the Paul Bocuse Institute near Lyon, where the centre is based, said: “The research will focus on man’s behaviour with food and his relationship to taste, pleasure, finance, health and wellbeing.”

Diners will serve as guinea pigs in the 100sq m eating area, which can be modified to resemble a high-class restaurant or canteen. Their behaviour will be observed in an attempt to discover why they finish some dishes and leave others; why they chat or sit in silence; and so on.

Cameras will film their reactions as they eat, microphones will record their conversations and sociologists, nutritionists, linguists and other researchers will use the material for master’s degrees produced in collaboration with French universities.

Five theses have already been accepted. They are on the language and gestures of waiters; how restaurant decoration and seating arrangements affect diners; what makes for a convivial meal; how to persuade children to eat vegetables; and what makes customers decide they are full.

Research director Agnes Giboreau said: “We want to study people from several different countries.”

Lyons University professor Martin Laville said the centre could help nutritionists to discover why children preferred chips to broccoli, by looking at “the codes of pleasure”.

This is an article by Adam Sage published in The Australian on Tuesday 9 December, 2008.

Facelift aims to fend off Open raiders

A FACELIFT for Rod Laver Arena and a new roof for Margaret Court Arena are among revamped tennis facilities the State Government hopes will keep the Australian Open in Melbourne until 2036.

A town square for tennis fans in the centre of the venue, partly covered with a lightweight roof, will also feature in the redevelopment, believed to be worth between $300 and $500 million.
The revamp will include a link between Melbourne Park and Birrarung Marr, new Tennis Australia headquarters and better player and media facilities.

Premier John Brumby yesterday pledged $5 million for a capital works program as well as detailed design and costings for the project's first stage, due to be completed by 2016.
"You are looking at the total cost here over many years of hundreds of millions of dollars," he said. "If we did nothing, you'd say the event post-2016 would be a question mark. But we are not going to do nothing."

The Age revealed in October that Sydney had launched a bid to snatch the Open. There had also been interest from Shanghai, Dubai and Madrid. Melbourne Park, home to the Australian Open for the past 21 years, has far more spectator traffic than the sites of the other three grand slams. But unlike Wimbledon, Flushing Meadows and the French Open's Roland Garros, it has not undergone any significant structural improvements in recent years.

Mr Brumby said the redevelopment would be undertaken "over the years so that the Open can be continued to be conducted with minimum disruption". Some works are not expected to begin for more than six years.

Tennis Australia president Geoff Pollard said that at 15,000 seats, Rod Laver Arena was the right size for a centre court and still one of the best in the world.

"There is no bad seat at Rod Laver Arena. It just needs a bit of sprucing up," he said.
Mr Brumby said a proposal to cover the rail yards east of Federation Square would probably remain shelved for decades, as it was too expensive.

The Open, which last year attracted 605,000 patrons, injected $164 million into the Victorian economy, while television broadcasts promoted the event and Melbourne to more than 240 million viewers worldwide.

Mr Pollard said that despite some players' protests about the Open's January start, mainly about the heat and a gruelling tour schedule, there were no plans to change the event dates.
"Australia owns January as far as the world is concerned in terms of sport and that's how we are going to continue," he said.

"My personal view is that the US Open finishes too late."

This is an article by Selma Milovanovic published in The Age online on January 27, 2009.

Melbourne Park de Triomphe

One of the good things about musketeers, apart from all that swashbuckling, is their numbers are so flexible. Traditionally, they are three, as in the Alexandre Dumas novel, but, adapted to circumstances, they have been as few as two and as many as five or six. When they all are for one, it makes for a formidable force.

In tennis, this is important. French tennis musketeers tend to come in greater lots than can be made to fit into a book title. In the 1920s and ‘30s, there were four, and between them they won six Davis Cups in a row, six Wimbledons in a row, not to mention their home championship eight times consecutively.

Later, there were Noah and Leconte, later Forget and Pioline, then a quadruple: Grosjean, Clement, Santoro and Escude. Nicolas Escude was not a household name, but he did lead France to famous Davis Cup win at Melbourne Park in 2001, on a grass court absurdly laid over the regular hard court.

The French have been consistently good at tennis, but also conspicuously lacking in spoils. Noah’s victory at Roland Garros in 1983 was the last for Frenchman in a major championship. There have been Davis Cup triumphs, but at long intervals.

Latterly, there has been a boom in French musketeers. At the end of last year, there were 13 Frenchmen in the top 100, 13 also in the main draw here. Only Spain, also with 13 in the top 100, could compare; Australia, with two, could not.

Six French men set out for the third round on Thursday [last week], and four made it. One Australian man, the last, set out, and went out- beaten by a Frenchman.

There is no single apparent reason for this Gallic surge. Certainly, the Government invests heavily in tennis - a British official estimated last year that his country’s spending on tennis was 10 years behind France’s- but other countries spend lavishly, too. The French coterie are not from any one place, nor of one style, disposition or colour. Most were French-born, but the parents of Gael Monfils, for instance, come from Guadeloupe and Martinique in the West Indies.

Their ages range widely. Monfils is 22, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 23 and Gilles Simon, the new rising star, 24, but three are in their 30s, including Clement, runner-up here to Andre Agassi in 2001, and Fabrice Santoro, at 36 the oldest man in the tournament. Both Clement and Santoro took their bows last week. The odd man out, Sebastien De Chaunac, 31, lost to James Blake last [week].

The French share a camaraderie, most listing compatriots as their closest friends and influences. But inevitably in such a crowd, they get in one another’s way. Richard Gasquet, long considered the Frenchman most likely, curtailed the Australian Open preparations of Tsonga in Brisbane and Simon in Sydney. Yesterday, Gasquet made that form good with a thumping of Denis Istommin, from Uzbekistan, on an outside court.

The two most intriguing are Simon and Monfils. Simon emerged as a top-10 player unexpectedly last season, which included victories over Federer, Nadal and Djokovic; he is one of few players on the circuit with a winning record against Federer, and recent victory over Rafael Nadal.

His nickname is Poussin, effectively “Shorty”, which might explain why he was too long overlooked. The Jankovic-like blemish on Simon’s record is that although he is ranked No.8 in the world, he has never proceeded beyond the third round of a major. Now he has a chance.

Monfils is familiar from other years, exotic, extravagant, but flaky. This year, he has a new guise; he still cuts a striking figure with his muscle shirt and flying dreadlocks, but he is playing a cut-down game, less eye-catching, but more reliable.

In one sense, Monfils characterises what fans dislike about the new French generation in that he has been leeched of flair. They remember the charismatic Noah, and Leconte, who once held up a match at Wimbledon so that he could lift a butterfly from the service line on his fingertip and deposit it in a courtside flowerbox. But those days are gone for all. Besides, there is about this wave enough “je ne sais quoi” to keep most happy.

Yet [last week] things became tricky. Simon, Gasquet and Monfils [were] in the same quarter of the draw, which might be called the French quarter except that it is also Nadal’s. Tsonga, who overcame the veteran Ivan Ljubicic last week, is in that half. More closely than they would have preferred, the Frenchmen are in this together; in the spirit of musketeers, all for one and one for all.  

Extracts from an article by Greg Baum, published in the The Age on Friday January 23, 2009.