21.   Beef markets in Germany, France and other countries have crumbled as consumers have shunned even home-grown meat.

22.   But he said the other EU nations had to act to protect the broader EU beef market.

23.   But the ban is unlikely to influence the European beef market, Fischler said, as Portugal is a small player on the market.

24.   Dragged down ever deeper by the mad cow crisis, European Union farm ministers Tuesday failed to agree on the latest compromise to boost the sagging beef markets.

25.   Dragged down ever deeper by the mad cow crisis, European Union farm ministers Tuesday failed to agree on a new compromise to boost the sagging beef markets.

26.   European Union farm ministers edged closer on Wednesday to a compromise deal to reinvigorate the beef market and help cattle farmers overcome the mad cow crisis, officials said.

27.   Fear of mad cow disease has hit the British beef market hard, and shoppers around the country face difficult decisions at the supermarket meat counter.

28.   Failure to relax the ban could sharply intensify a crisis that has gripped the EU since it imposed the export ban seven weeks ago to protect beef markets.

29.   Further liberalization of the Japanese and South Korean beef import markets was expected to substantially lift total beef demand.

30.   He said Australia is deeply concerned at the implications this has for the long-term liberalization of the Canadian beef market.