China’s Tainted Milk Scandal Won’t Fade Away

China’s poisoned milk scandal won’t go away.  China continues to update its listing of the number of children sickened, angry parents protest, a court is to decide on wrongdoing of dairy company Sanlu executives and arrests in the case continue.

China and much of the world was roiled when scientists found melamine was being used to make milk look as if it had additional nourishment.  Melamine can be poisonous to people and hundreds of thousands of children fell ill.  At least six children died.

The situation uncovered wide ranging food safety irregularities in China.

Peace and Freedom

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Chinese authorities have arrested 60 people in connection with the country’s tainted milk scandal that killed six infants and sickened nearly 300,000 more, state media reported.Above: Victims’ relatives outside a court hold banners that read “cannot deprive the victims’ rights.”

CNN:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asia
pcf/01/12/china.milk/index.html

 

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China said on Monday a total of 296,000 children had fallen ill from consuming dairy products tainted with the industrial chemical melamine, up 2,000 from the previous official count.

The health ministry also told reporters at a briefing that a total of 52,898 babies had been treated in hospital for kidney problems caused by the toxic ingredient. Of these, 52,582 had been discharged.

AFP

 
Journalists gather round parents whose babies suffered from melamine-tainted milk in Beijing. China said Monday that a total of 296,000 children had fallen ill from consuming dairy products tainted with the industrial chemical melamine, up 2,000 from the previous official count(AFP/File/Frederic J. Brown)

The health ministry announced in early December a figure of 294,000 babies sickened by melamine, a chemical normally used to make plastic.

Earlier ministry data also showed six deaths had been linked to melamine.

The figure was released as the nation awaited the verdicts in the first cases against officials from Sanlu Group, the company at the heart of the baby formula scandal.

The discovery that melamine was mixed into baby milk, in a bid to make it look richer in protein, shocked consumers both in China and abroad, dealing another blow to the reputation of the nation’s products.

Read the rest:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090112/wl
_afp/chinafoodsafetychild_newsmlmmd

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170 arrested in global child porn investigation

More than 170 people around the globe, including at least 61 in the United States, have been arrested in a major operation targeting international child pornographers, officials said Friday.

By Terry Frieden
CNN
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So far, Operation Joint Hammer has rescued 11 girls in the United States, ages 3 to 13, who were sexually abused by child pornography producers, U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and representatives of the European Union said at the Justice Department Friday.

Dozens more were located in Europe, including several young female victims in Ukraine.

Authorities found connections between producers, distributors and customers in nearly 30 countries as a single investigation grew to a global inquiry into the dark corners of brutality and child abuse.

U.S. child actress Miley Cyrus on the cover
of Vanity Fair Magazine….Criminal child porn
is well beyond this….

The investigation, code-named Operation Koala in Europe, was first developed when investigators determined a pornographic video found in Australia had been produced in Belgium.

Read the rest:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/12/porn.arr
ests/index.html?section=cnn_latest

Pakistan’s Mumbai Arrest: Will It Satisfy India?

After a week of breathing fire on Pakistan for failing to crack down on the militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), which India blames for orchestrating the lethal Mumbai attacks of last month, New Delhi reacted with caution to reports of a Pakistani raid that led to the arrest of an alleged Mumbai mastermind. Indian security analysts are concerned that the move may be a feint by Pakistan’s all-powerful military to buy time. “If the reports are true, the raids show some movement forward,” says defense expert C. Uday Bhaskar. “But given how the civilian and military establishments are aligned in Pakistan, it is always a case of two steps forward, one step backward.”

By MADHUR SINGH / NEW DELHI
Time Magazine

 

The raid in Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistani half of the disputed territory of Kashmir, targeted the main local office of the Jama’at-ud-Da’awa (JuD), a charitable organization that terrorism experts say became the legal front of the banned LeT. Soldiers entered the office after a 3 p.m. deadline for its occupants to surrender had passed. Some 30 people fled. Local residents report that they heard fighting and machine-gun fire but no heavy weapons. The army has refused to comment. Latif Akbar, a leader of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party in Muzaffarabad, told TIME that he’s “very worried about the law-and-order situation. There will be retaliatory attacks [by militants] for sure.”

 

Among those reportedly taken into custody was Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, who India believes was in charge of training LeT operatives for suicide attacks. Indian authorities refused to comment on the reports, saying they were awaiting official confirmation from the Pakistani government that they had acted on a diplomatic protest served on the Pakistan High Commissioner to New Delhi on Dec. 2, seeking “strong action” against those responsible for the Mumbai attacks.

Read the rest from TIME:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20081209/wl_time/08599186498700