What's in the News

I wonder if my brother-in-law is serving ham for Christmas dinner?   

Serves them right, damn child-killing bastards!

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Sanlu Group, the company at the center of China's tainted infant formula scandal, has filed for bankruptcy.


Markets withdrew Sanlu milk powder in September after melamine was found as an additive.

 A court in Shijiazhuang, China, where the company is based, told CNN Wednesday it has received the bankruptcy application.

Baby formula produced by Sanlu -- previously one of China's leading dairy producers -- was first flagged in the scandal when it recalled about 700 tons of the powdered milk in September after discovering the product was contaminated with melamine.

The poisonings killed six babies and sickened 290,000 others, according to China's Xinhua news agency.

Melamine is commonly used in coatings and laminates, wood adhesives, fabric coatings, ceiling tiles and flame retardants. Some Chinese dairy plants have added it to milk products to make it seem to have a higher protein level.

Melamine is the same industrial contaminant from China that poisoned and killed thousands of U.S. dogs and cats last year.

Health experts say ingesting melamine can lead to kidney stones, urinary tract ulcers, and eye and skin irritation. It also robs infants of much-needed nutrition.

Sanlu could be taken over by Beijing Sanyuan Food Company or Wandashan Dairy, Xinhua reported.

Chinese investigators found melamine in nearly 70 milk products from more than 20 companies, according to then-quality control official Li Changjiang, who was forced to resign.

Thousands of tons of tainted milk powder were recalled, including pullbacks by Mengniu Dairy Group, China's largest milk producer, and Sanlu.

In addition to Li's ouster, the fallout from the scandal led to arrest of at least 18 people in September and new government safety measures.

New Zealand-based Fonterra, which owns a 43 percent stake in Sanlu, said the Shijiazhuang court issued the bankruptcy order against the Chinese company in response to a creditor's petition.

Under the court order, according to Fonterra, a court-appointed receiver will manage Sanlu and assume responsibility "for an orderly sale of the company's assets and payment of creditors" within six months.

"This bankruptcy order is not a surprise to us," Andrew Ferrier, Fonterra's CEO, said in statement. "We were aware that Sanlu was in a very difficult situation and faced mounting debts as a result of the melamine contamination crisis."

The People's Republic Of Australia? I know there's some strict film censorship down under, but a GFW, too?

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20081226/ap_on_hi_te/tec_australia_internet_filter

SYDNEY, Australia - A proposed Internet filter dubbed the "Great Aussie Firewall" is promising to make Australia one of the strictest Internet regulators among democratic countries.

Consumers, civil-rights activists, engineers, Internet providers and politicians from opposition parties are among the critics of a mandatory Internet filter that would block at least 1,300 Web sites prohibited by the government — mostly child pornography, excessive violence, instructions in crime or drug use and advocacy of terrorism.

Hundreds protested in state capitals earlier this month.

"This is obviously censorship," said Justin Pearson Smith, 29, organizer of protests in Melbourne and an officer of one of a dozen Facebook groups against the filter.

The list of prohibited sites, which the government isn't making public, is arbitrary and not subject to legal scrutiny, Smith said, leaving it to the government or lawmakers to pursue their own online agendas.

"I think the money would be better spent in investing in law enforcement and targeting producers of child porn," he said.

Internet providers say a filter could slow browsing speeds, and many question whether it would achieve its intended goals. Illegal material such as child pornography is often traded on peer-to-peer networks or chats, which would not be covered by the filter.

There's a disturbing trend amongst western governments to use kiddie pron as a justification for widespread censorship. It cheapens the severity of the issue by using it as the reason to justify plain old Big Brotherism. I find it despicable when people use children or claims of concern for their safety as the ruse for their desire to censor. It's not nearly as grotesque as the very real crime of pedophilia, but it's still profoundly disturbing in its own, right.

England has recently engaged in this, and there is a push for it in America, too, but it hasn't yet reached the stages of internet firewalling the PRC, England and now, apparently Australia have enacted or are about to. The common justification behind this is the same, but I suspect it has more to do with wanting to crack down on civil liberties than in preventing crimes against humanity.

So when your students tell you China NEVER uses it's military:
 
China navy mission makes neighbours nervous


December 27, 2008
Article from:  The Australian

GUANGZHOU: A Chinese navy anti-piracy task force set sail for Africa yesterday in the nation's first potential combat mission beyond its territorial waters in centuries.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24845277-2703,00.html

The US Navy already announced that they are more than happy to have the Chinese Navy join the party. 

Chinese destroyers vs. Somali pirates.  That should be a lot of fun to watch - for about 5 minutes.
 

Sounds like the pirates are about to sleep with the fishes.

Hate to keep ragging on about sanlu, but this caught my eye in the paper this moring:

The dairy company Sanlu, based in Shijiazhuang, confirmed earlier this week that it was bankrupt.

Xinhua reported Thursday that Sanlu has 1.1 billion yuan ($160 million U.S.) of net debt and that a branch of the Shijiazhuang City Commercial Bank was the creditor that applied to a court to have Sanlu declared bankrupt.

It said the intermediate court in Shijiazhuang had accepted the filing. Xinhua said Sanlu owes a creditor 902 million yuan ($132 million U.S.) it borrowed earlier this month to pay for the medical treatment of children sickened after drinking the company's infant formula and for compensation of the babies' families.

Wang Jianguo, spokesman for the Shijiazhuang city government, said the money was given to the China Dairy Industry Association for medical care and compensation fees for victims, according to a transcript of a news conference he gave Thursday.

A woman who answered the phone Friday at the association refused to answer any questions.

The issue of compensation for the families of the children sickened or killed has become a sensitive one, with courts so far not accepting any lawsuits filed by the families.

Aside from the usual qualms about small fish being punished while the big sharks swim away scot-free, I get this nagging doubt about the compensation money. They put the company into a huge hole to get the compensation money, then where does the money go to? Looks like these guys have been studying American banking.

So China and the West are cooperating to stamp out a growing threat of piracy...fascinating...last time that happened was 400 years ago. Those pirates are goners!

Will the Chinese claim it was their superiority that enabled the West to finally stop the scourge of the sea?  Clearly it hasn't been able to be achieved without them!! 

China's joining a fairly large party.

Canadian frigate: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/08/06/somalia.piracy/index.html

Indians, though they seem to need better target identification:
http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-update-mother-ship-shrimp-boat-either-way-it%E2%80%99s-puree/

Sanlu bankrupt?  F'ing A!   The moral of the story: don't poison babies.

The world banding together to fight pirates? F'ing A!  Moral: don't hijack ships.     

Looks like these guys have been studying American banking.

Given how much gold and currency China has invested in, we go full circle, because the American bankers certainly learned how to fudge the books like the Chinese.

The government should compensate the families, because their system let Sanlu go on with the abuse. Of course, there are people in Sichuan still waiting for compensation and ah and up since May...

Justice in China is similar to the easter bunny in the west. Pleasant idea, but it's not a reality.

Sanlu bankrupt?  F'ing A!   The moral of the story: don't poison babies.

Bankruptcy is often the first step towards extinction, but it isn't always the case. Are the filing for protection?

Don't break open the champagne until Sanlu is actually extinct.

Read the fine print (and weep), folks. The company isn't going under because they poisoned children, but because they borrowed tons of money to pay for treatment and to settle claims by families that lost children to their callous disregard for safety (and common sense). And now that money seems to have disappeared. Sorry folks. Them that has, gets. Them that hasn't, gets sick kiddies. The bankruptcy just wipes a brush over their tracks.

 

This calls for assassins.

TRULY SICK MAKING!!!

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24878783-601,00.html

"man of steel"