Commission recommendations on fish quotas largely ignored by ministers

Fishermen in the North Sea will be able to catch a lot more cod next year, while cod fishers elsewhere will have to do with less, after EU fisheries ministers agreed on Friday to fish quotas for 2009 - quotas that oceans campaigners say are as unsustainable as ever.

The North Sea cod quota will see a rise of 30 percent on 2008, although fishermen must now use new types of nets that cut down on the amount of discards - those fish that are thrown back into the sea, dead or alive, as the f...