Police in northern China have arrested 27 people in their probe into tainted milk that has sickened 53,000 children and soiled China’s reputation abroad, state media reported yesterday.
The 27 are among 36 detained since authorities in Hebei began investigating Sanlu Group, the company at the center of the scandal, earlier this month.
The investigation followed the discovery that the industrial chemical melamine, which is normally used to make plastics, had been added to Sanlu powdered milk.
The Xinhua news agency had reported 22 detentions by Monday and said those arrested were involved in a network that made and sold melamine and added it to milk.
Four children have died so far after drinking milk tainted with the chemical, which can make watered-down milk appear richer in protein.
According to police investigations in Hebei, where Sanlu is headquartered, melamine was produced at underground plants and sold to breeding farms and milk purchasing stations, the China Daily reported yesterday.
The report said Chinese officials, learning that the purchasing stations were among the key links in how the contaminated milk spread, have begun a national campaign to overhaul the system.
A total of 31 provinces have set up special task forces to supervise the purchasing centers and implement more standardized practices, the newspaper said.
Milk purchasing centers only began operating in recent years and the government has not yet set up a specific department to supervise them, it said.
The newspaper cited the agriculture ministry as saying melamine had most probably been mixed with milk at the stations.
“We will resolutely put an end to the practice of adding melamine to fresh milk,” Chinese Agriculture Minister Sun Zhengcai (孫政才) said in an interview with the People’s Daily, which was posted on the paper’s Web site.
“We will carefully monitor the production, sale and processing of fresh milk,” Sun was quoted as saying.
Chinese officials have struggled in recent days to contain the fallout from the scandal as a growing range of China-made products have been pulled off shelves across the world.
British sweet maker Cadbury said on Monday it had found traces of melamine in chocolates made at its Beijing factory and ordered a recall of those products in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Australia.
The 11 brands recalled include Cadbury Eclairs and bulk packets of Dairy Milk chocolate, the company said earlier.
Indonesia’s food supervisory agency said over the weekend it discovered 16 Chinese-made dairy products that contained melamine, adding that all those products — including well-known brands such as Snickers and M&M’s chocolates — would be destroyed immediately.
Mars said it was “extremely surprised” by that decision, insisting other tests had cleared its products of contamination.
More than a dozen Asian and African countries, plus the 27-member EU, have taken steps to ban or limit consumption of products containing Chinese dairy.
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
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS