Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) said the Chinese government was partly responsible for the tainted milk scandal that has sickened tens of thousands of children and shaken consumer confidence in the country’s food exports.
In an interview published in this week’s Science magazine, Wen said the government feels “great sorrow” over the tainting, which has been blamed for the deaths of four babies.
“We feel that although problems occurred at the company, the government also has a responsibility,” Wen said in the Sept. 20 interview posted Friday on the Web site of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
A Chinese version of the interview in the People’s Daily newspaper, the ruling Communist Party’s mouthpiece, also quoted Wen as saying the government had been lax in “supervision and management.”
It’s a rare admission by a member of China’s leadership. Wen has won popular admiration for his visits to the country’s poor rural areas and victims of the devastating May 12 earthquake in Sichuan Province.
Authorities have blamed dairy suppliers, saying they added the industrial chemical melamine to watered-down milk to dupe quality control tests and make the product appear rich in protein.
The process of making milk products — from the collection of raw milk to the production and transportation — “all need to have clear standards and testing requirements and corresponding responsibilities,” Wen said.
He said: “I once again solemnly emphasize that it is absolutely impermissible to sacrifice people’s lives and health in exchange for temporary economic development.”
“Food, all food, must meet international standards,” Wen said.
In its efforts to deal with health and public relations issues stemming from the situation, the government has issued strict standards for allowable melamine levels in food and 5,000 of its inspectors have been dispatched to provide 24-hour supervision over the industry.
A number of officials have been fired for negligence and some of China’s dairy giants ensnared in the turmoil have opened their factories to a government-led media tour in a bid to regain the public’s trust.
The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the country’s chief quality watchdog, said on its Web site yesterday that a fresh round of random tests on liquid milk have showed allowable amounts of melamine.
The agency said it collected samples from 544 batches of liquid milk from 70 brands in 22 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Harbin.
Health officials have said that, while deliberate tainting is explicitly forbidden, small amounts of melamine can leach from the environment and packaging into milk and other foods.
China’s exports were hammered by quality scandals even before the uproar over contaminated milk. Its manufacturing industry had been under intense scrutiny after melamine and other industrial toxins were found last year in exports ranging from toothpaste to a pet food ingredient.
Since the latest scare, milk-linked products from China have been withdrawn from stores in dozens of countries as governments increase vigilance and step up safety tests.
Panama on Friday said several Chinese cookies and candy taken out of stores have tested positive for traces of melamine.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
SPIRITUAL COUPLE: Martha Louise has said she can talk with angels, while her husband, Durek Verrett, claims that he communicates with a broad range of spirits Social media influencers, reality stars and TV personalities were among the guests as the Norwegian king’s eldest child, Princess Martha Louise, married a self-professed US shaman on Saturday in a wedding ceremony following three days of festivities. The 52-year-old Martha Louise and Durek Verrett, who claims to be a sixth-generation shaman from California, tied the knot in the picturesque small town of Geiranger, one of Norway’s major tourist attractions located on a fjord with stunning views. Following festivities that started on Thursday, the actual wedding ceremony took place in a large white tent set up on a lush lawn. Guests
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious