Chinese police have broken a crime ring that passed off more than US$1 million in rat and small mammal meat as mutton, authorities said, in a food safety crackdown that coincides with a bird flu outbreak and other environmental pressures.
Authorities have arrested 904 suspects since the end of January for selling and producing fake or tainted meat products, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security said in a statement posted on its Web site on Thursday.
During the crackdown, police discovered one suspect surnamed Wei who had used additives to spice up and sell rat, fox and mink meat at markets in Shanghai and Jiangsu Province.
Police arrested 63 suspects connected to the crime ring in a case valued at more than 10 million yuan (US$1.6 million) in sales since 2009.
Despite persistent efforts by police, “food safety crimes are still prominent, and new situations are emerging with new characteristics,” the ministry’s statement said, citing “responsible officials.”
Police confiscated more than 20,000 tonnes of fake or inferior meat products after breaking up illegal food plants during the nationwide operation, the ministry said.
Food safety and environmental pollution are chronic problems in China and public anxiety over cases of fake or toxic food often spreads quickly.
Last month, many consumers lost their appetite for poultry as an outbreak of the H7N9 bird flu virus spread in China. Sales dropped by 80 percent in eastern China, where the bird flu has been most prevalent, although experts stress that cooked chicken is perfectly safe.
The public security ministry said police had confiscated more than 15 tonnes of tainted pork in Anhui Province, although as much as 60 tonnes had been sold in Anhui and Fujian provinces since the middle of last year.
However, it was the rodent meat in particular that people could not stomach, with Internet users turning to the popular microblogging site Sina Weibo to vent their outrage.
“Rats? How disgusting. Everything we eat is poison,” one user said.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
SKEPTICAL: Given the challenges, which include waste disposal and potential domestic opposition, experts warn that the 2032 nuclear timeline is overambitious Indonesia is hoping going nuclear can help it meet soaring energy demand while taming emissions, but faces serious challenges to its goal of a first small modular reactor by 2032. Its first experiment with nuclear energy dates to February 1965, when then-Indonesian president Sukarno inaugurated a test reactor. Sixty years later, Southeast Asia’s largest economy has three research reactors, but no nuclear power plants for electricity. Abundant reserves of polluting coal have so far met the enormous archipelago’s energy needs, but “nuclear will be necessary to constrain the rise of and eventually reduce emissions,” said Philip Andrews-Speed, a senior research fellow at the