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More punishments meted out over cardboard buns

At least seven more people have been fired or reprimanded over an allegedly fake television report about street vendors selling buns stuffed with chemically treated cardboard, Chinese state media reported yesterday.

Reportedly shot with a hidden camera, the story briefly came to symbolize China's food safety woes that have alarmed people at home and hammered its reputation as a food and drug exporter.

Footage appeared to show a makeshift kitchen where people made fluffy buns stuffed with cardboard that had been softened in a bath of caustic soda and fatty pork.

The report prompted Beijing's health authorities to carry out a spot check of more than two dozen vendors selling the pork buns. None were reported to have been found using cardboard.

The reporter who allegedly made the report, Zi Beijia (訾北佳), has already been detained and Beijing Television issued an apology late on Wednesday saying the report was not true.

The Xinhua news agency and the Beijing Daily both reported yesterday that the head of Beijing Television, Liu Aiqin (劉愛勤), was publicly reprimanded and its editor-in-chief, Zhang Xiao (張曉), was given a warning.

One deputy editor-in-chief was given a demerit, Xinhua said, quoting sources at the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

The news reports said at least four other officials connected with the station that broadcast the report had been fired.
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