The Beijing plants of US soft drink giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have been listed as among the top 12 factories causing major water pollution in China’s capital, the city government has announced.
The list issued by the Beijing Development and Reform Commission, the capital’s economic planning agency, was published along with the top 15 energy users in the capital, which included the Beijing Benz-DaimlerChrysler plant.
China has set a goal of reducing average energy consumption by 20 percent from 2006 to next year. This means it has to cut average consumption by 4 percent annually over the five-year period — a target it has so far failed to meet.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“[This year] is a key year for fulfilling our energy-saving and pollution-reduction goals,” the commission said in a statement on its Web site, cited by the Beijing News yesterday.
The 27 entities will be subject to increased supervision and asked to submit plans to reduce energy use and pollution emissions, the commission said.
PepsiCo-Beijing and Coca-Cola-Beijing refused immediate comment on the issue yesterday.
The Beijing News quoted Beijing Benz-DaimlerChrysler as saying it would this year “step up the scope of reducing energy use and emissions, saving energy and treating waste water and waste through technological upgrading.”
The Tsingtao brewery in Beijing, top juice maker Huiyuan and several major Chinese dairy producers were also included on the list of major water polluters.
Top energy users were the Capital Iron and Steel Corporation and the US chemical company Praxair.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
COORDINATION, ASSURANCE: Separately, representatives reintroduced a bill that asks the state department to review guidelines on how the US engages with Taiwan US senators on Tuesday introduced the Taiwan travel and tourism coordination act, which they said would bolster bilateral travel and cooperation. The bill, proposed by US senators Marsha Blackburn and Brian Schatz, seeks to establish “robust security screenings for those traveling to the US from Asia, open new markets for American industry, and strengthen the economic partnership between the US and Taiwan,” they said in a statement. “Travel and tourism play a crucial role in a nation’s economic security,” but Taiwan faces “pressure and coercion from the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]” in this sector, the statement said. As Taiwan is a “vital trading
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