China said yesterday that a third infant had died after drinking contaminated milk and the number of sick had leapt to many thousands, while an official said the health threat was concealed for at least a month.
The number of ill children had risen nearly five-fold to 6,244, and those with “acute kidney failure” was at 158, Health Minister Chen Zhu (陳竺) told a news conference.
The escalating scandal triggered a recall of exports, the sacking of officials and detention of a sacked company executive.
The scare has crossed the nation’s borders, with China’s quality watchdog saying two producers were recalling milk powder exported to Taiwan, Yemen, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Gabon and Burundi.
Vice Governor of Hebei Yang Chongyong (楊崇勇) told reporters yesterday that Shijiazhuang officials had delayed reporting the poisonings throughout last month. Sanlu kept quiet even longer, Yang said.
“We know that before they reported the problem to the Shijiazhuang government on Aug. 2 they had already covered up many of the facts,” he said.
Other offending firms include Olympics sponsor Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group and Hong Kong-listed Mengniu Dairy Co.
“We are very sorry that consumers have been injured physically and psychologically because of these batches of milk powder,” Mengniu said in a statement.
As in past product safety scandals, the government has responded by sacking junior officials. Police announced they detained the just-fired chairwoman of Sanlu, Tian Wenhua (田文華).
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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