China’s leaders and health authorities battled yesterday to contain a growing scandal over widespread contamination of milk supplies as the first sickness from the crisis was reported outside China.
More than 6,200 infants have become sick and four babies have died in China after being fed baby formula laced with a banned industrial chemical, but no illnesses had been reported elsewhere until the Hong Kong government said a three-year-old girl had been diagnosed with a kidney stone after drinking milk containing melamine.
The girl was diagnosed with a kidney stone but was in good condition and has been discharged from the hospital, the government said in a statement late on Saturday.
PHOTO: AP
The girl’s parents took her for a checkup because she had been drinking milk made by Chinese dairy company Yili every day for the past 15 months.
Yili Industrial Group Co is one of 22 companies whose milk and dairy products were recalled after batches of their products were found to contain melamine.
The government has launched high-profile efforts to show it is on top of the crisis, with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) appearing on state-run television over the weekend to demand that public safety be put “at the top of the agenda.”
Since the problem of toxic milk products became public knowledge less than two weeks ago, the crisis has spread to include almost all of China’s biggest dairy companies.
Their products have been pulled from stores around the country, and in other places such as Hong Kong and Macau.
Starbucks stopped offering milk in its 300 outlets in China.
Japan and Singapore have recalled Chinese-made dairy products, and the governments of Malaysia and Brunei announced bans on milk products from China even though neither country currently imports Chinese dairy items.
The concern is because melamine has been found not only in powdered milk — used to make baby formula and other products — but also in liquid milk sold by China’s biggest dairies.
Melamine is used in making plastics and is high in nitrogen, which registers as protein in tests of milk.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS