DUBAI: UAE standards chiefs have taken aim at the region’s fast food favorite — banishing the common practice of making and selling the sandwiches outside shops.
The Emirates Authority for Standardization and Metrology (ESMA) has updated the requirements for the processing and handling of shawarma sandwiches.
“The new mandatory requirements also prohibit the practice of roasting and selling outside the limits of the shop, in order to protect the food from external pollutants and sources of dust and pollution,” said Khalaf Khalaf, director of the Standards Department of ESMA.
It comes weeks after kebabs came under scrutiny by European lawmakers.
The new rules aim to prevent the exposure of these food products to pollution as being perishable, and to protect the community from the risk of exposure to unsafe food, state news agency WAM reported.
Workers handling the meat should “have a valid health certificate, be free from infectious diseases, respiratory diseases, wounds and ulcers, and adhere to the rules of hygiene during working hours such as washing hands with soap and water,” ESMA said.
UAE seeks shawarma karma
UAE seeks shawarma karma
Syria says detained senior Daesh jihadist in Damascus
- The arrest came less than two weeks after a December 13 attack killed two US soldiers
DAMASCUS: Syrian authorities have arrested a senior Daesh group official in the Damascus region in a joint operation with a US-led international coalition, a security official said on Wednesday.
Taha Al-Zoubi, also known as Abu Omar Tabiya, an Daesh leader in Damascus, was detained with several of his men, General Ahmad Al-Dalati was reported as saying by state news agency SANA.
The arrest came less than two weeks after a December 13 attack killed two US soldiers and a US civilian that Washington said was carried out by a lone Daesh gunman in central Syria’s Palmyra.
“Our specialized units, in cooperation with the General Intelligence Directorate and and International Coalition forces, carried out a precise security operation targeting” an Daesh hideout, Dalati said.
On December 20, a Syria monitor said that five Daesh members were killed in US strikes in retaliation for the December 13 attack.
It was the first such incident since the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December last year, and Syrian authorities said the perpetrator was a security forces member who was due to be fired for his “extremist Islamist ideas.”
