Japan OKs letup on ban for fruit from California

Japan has agreed to ease up on the quarantine restrictions on imports of California-grown citrus fruit imposed in August after an infestation of Mediterranian fruit flies in the state, a Japanese Agriculture Ministry spokesman said.

The agreement emerged from a huddle of US and Japanese experts on plant quarantine. Under the agreement, all quarantine procedures will return to normal when the US Agriculture Department declares the end of Medfly infection in the two infested areas of Stanislaus and Los Angeles -- probably late in May.