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China rejects U.S.
pistachios over ants
   BEIJING — China said Saturday it had rejected a shipment of pistachios from the United States because it contained ants, the latest indication the government may be retaliating as Chinese products are turned back from overseas because of safety concerns.
   The state television report, which showed inspectors wearing face masks and sealing the shipping container that held the pistachios, indicated an increasing push to show that other countries also have food safety issues. On Friday, a Chinese food safety watchdog announced that shipments of health supplements and raisins from the U.S. had been returned or destroyed because they did not meet quality control standards.
   China’s food- and drug-safety record has come under scrutiny in recent months following the deaths of cats and dogs in the United States and Canada blamed on tainted Chinese pet food ingredients. Since then, U.S. inspectors have banned or turned away a growing number of Chinese exports — from monkfish to juice to toothpaste — because they contained life-threatening levels of toxins or unsafe chemicals.

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In China today, it’s the economy, not democracy, stupid
Jim Hoagland is a nationally syndicated columnist.
Jim Hoagland

   BEIJING — Tiananmen Square is somnolent this June. Chinese tourists in T-shirts loll in the shadows along its northern perimeter. Two small police cars roll softly by on opposite sides of the world’s largest square to ensure that it stays this peaceful.
   The eye tells you in this and other ways that China has moved far beyond the uprising of students, workers and some officials that captured the world’s interest and admiration before being brutally repressed 18 years ago this month — the last time I was here.
   Beijing has become an urban Godzilla since then: Concave, convex and cantilevered skyscrapers march erratically across the ridges of an unending, perpetually smogfilled skyline. These canyons of steel and glass corporate fortresses visually testify that money and material ambition have totally eclipsed the demands for democracy — and honesty in government — that filled the streets in one of the 20th century’s great moments of peaceful public protest.
   The ear hears this message as well — from China’s Communist leadership, from foreign investors who pour dollars, euros and yen into the world’s manufacturing hub, and from ordinary citizens who speak about the “events” at Tiananmen Square in June 1989 with great caution or undisguised evasion. How obsolete of you to ask what remains of the spirit of Tiananmen, they suggest.
   After all, the world moved in the same direction after the 1980s, an under-appreciated decade that was filled with mass political movements that I watched upend dictatorships in Poland, the Philippines and East Germany, and which set the stage for the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. The political ferment of the ’80s quickly gave way to obsessive popular concern with money and spreading free markets around the globe that has not run its course.
   Precisely because it was unfi nished, the Tiananmen revolt still shapes China today, even if in subterranean fashion. A visitor’s eyes and ears do not tell the full story. This country’s Communist government runs nearly as scared as it did when its troops killed hundreds, probably thousands, of protesters 18 years ago.
   The repression of organized political dissent continues to be a tool of control for China’s current leaders. But their one-party monopoly on power is based even more on providing annual economic growth rates of around 10 percent that bring a highly visible flow of consumer goods and other material benefits to the country’s urban population.
   The Chinese government does much to encourage the development of the economy and consumption of consumer goods, entertainment and sports. But any political media would be highly controversial,’’ says Victor Yuan, the head of Beijing’s most sophisticated market research and polling company. “This brings a real fever of entrepreneurship and a highly developed Internet culture on every subject, except political discourse.’’
   President Bush predicted last week that this dichotomy could not last — that free-market reforms would inevitably lead to political reform. China’s leaders do not share this belief. Neither does the man who ranks as the most important dissident in China today.
   Bao Tong was a senior aide to Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang and played a leading role in crafting China’s initial economic reforms in the 1980s. But Bao was jailed for showing sympathy toward the pro-democracy demonstrations. Released from prison into house arrest in 1996, he has only recently been allowed such freedoms as meeting with foreign journalists. In a long conversation last week, he confirmed that my eyes and ears were not getting the full story.
   Yes, there is change. When I walked in the park today, I heard criticism of the government that would have brought death sentences in Mao Zedong’s time. But nothing like this can be broadcast or published in the media. Nothing like this can be said in an organized meeting. Nothing will be allowed that would affect the political situation.
   “The change you see and hear is the flowers, and the leaves. But there is no change in the root. That is the party’s control over everything, including control over the market. Money is to the leaders today what revolution was to Mao — a tool to control the people,” the 74-yearold former official told me. “The unchanged root is the one-party dictatorship.”
   So, did the students and workers of 1989 fail? No, Bao responds: “They should have protested, and they did. The party failed. The party violated the constitution and its own charter. It became a Communist Party without communism, without any concern for the people. I feel proud of those who protested. I feel ashamed of the leadership.”  

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Apple growers brace for expected competition from China
BY KIMBERLY HEFLING The Associated Press

   GETTYSBURG, Pa. — Farmers have been growing apples here since before the Civil War, and as times have changed, they have changed with them, planting smaller trees to speed up harvests and growing popular new varieties to satisfy changing tastes.
   But the growers who have made this mountainous region the core of apple-growing in Pennsylvania worry that they face a new challenge that may be too big to overcome and could change their way of life.
   Like farmers in the bigger appleproducing states, they are becoming increasingly anxious about the prospect of China flooding the U.S. market with their fresh apples — an event many believe is inevitable, even if it could be years away.
   They saw what happened in the 1990s when Chinese apple juice concentrate made it into the United States. Prices got so low, some U.S. juice companies were forced out of the U.S. market. Growers could no longer afford to grow apples just for making juice.
   With the Farm Bill up for renewal this year for the first time since 2002, apple growers are pressing for an unprecedented amount of federal funding to develop technologies to make harvesting less costly, and aid to develop overseas markets.
   Even before new questions were raised this year about how well China enforces food safety rules, some growers were also pressing the U.S. government to require country-of-origin stickers on all apples.
   “We’re facing a threat that we’ve never faced before in terms of their ability to come in and essentially replace every apple that we produce in this country numerically and at a much lower cost,” said John Rice, a seventh-generation grower whose grandfather made money in the Depression era by gathering apples from area growers and shipping them to England in 100-pound barrels.
   Rice’s family today owns 1,000 acres of orchards and packs and markets apples for 50 area growers primarily in Pennsylvania’s historic growing area in Adams County, on the Maryland border.
   “We have to lower our costs and we have to do what other successful business have done in the face of Chinese competition, and that is to innovate, to stay ahead, to either grow new varieties that they don’t grow in China, or whatever it takes,” Rice said.
   Fifteen years ago, China grew fewer apples than the United States. Today, it grows five times as many — nearly half of all apples grown in the world.
   China’s advantage is its cheap labor. A picker makes about 28 cents an hour, or $2 per day, according to the U.S. Apple Association. In 2005, workers in Pennsylvania made about $9 to $10 per hour, and those in Washington state about $14 per hour, the association said.
   Discussions between the U.S. and China over whether its fresh apples can be brought into the United States have been going on since 1998.
   To gain access to the market here, China must prove that it meets U.S. standards for pest and disease control. The U.S. Apple Association said the Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service sent a list of more than 300 insects and diseases of concern to the quarantine inspection agency of the Chinese government in 2003. The Chinese government responded the next year, and then the United States asked for information on 52 pests from the list.
   The value of U.S. apple production was estimated at more than $2.1 billion last year. About 60 percent of the apples are sold as fresh fruit, and about 25 percent are exported. Pennsylvania ranks fifth behind Washington, New York, California and Michigan in the number of apples grown.
   Already, U.S. apple growers compete with Chinese growers for sales in parts of Southeast Asia and India.
   After Chinese juice concentrate entered the U.S. market, the average price for juice apples fell from $153 per ton in 1995 to $55 per ton in 1998. The industry filed an antidumping case but lost on appeal with the U.S. Commerce Department. Today, more than half of imported concentrate comes from China.
   “It was an uproar within the industry,” said Jim Allen, president of the New York Apple Association. “What can we do? It just takes the bottom right out of our market when the product is being delivered to New York City for less than we can process and harvest it here in the United States.”
   Like in many areas of farming, many U.S. apple-growing operations have been absorbed by bigger ones. Some smaller remaining operations have survived by selling directly to consumers at farmers markets or developing niche markets selling organic or specialty apples.
   Third-generation Pennsylvania grower Dave Benner, 61, like most growers, has slowly replaced older larger trees in his orchard with smaller dwarf ones that are close together. That makes the fruit easier and faster to pick. He also pays close attention to consumer demand and to the world market.
   “Business is still business whether you’re in agriculture production or you’re in commercial manufacturing,” Benner said. “When people want small economical cars, then the automobile industry had to change. When people say they like the flavor of Gala or Fuji apples . . . that’s what I have to be growing.”
   Because more than half of the cost of growing apples goes toward labor, researchers have been working to develop technology and practices that will help cut labor costs. Among the concepts under development are machines that will allow apples to be mechanically picked without bruising, and platforms that lift up pickers so they don’t have to climb ladders.
   The apple industry is working with other fruit and vegetable industries to seek, in the 2007 Farm Bill, about $1 billion annually for research, a state block program, a program that helps it develop overseas markets and for expansion for a program that provides fruits and vegetables to school kids.
   Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, called these “basic nuts-andbolts” items that would improve competitiveness.
   The current Farm Bill, which was worth about $100 billion, passed in 2002 and expires in September. In it, country-of-origin labeling was mandated, but its implementation has been delayed until September 2008 because of opposition by retailers and others who say it is too burdensome.
   Most apples already carry the labeling, but Mark Barrett, 52, a grower in Washington’s Yakima Valley, said full implementation is the best way to help U.S. apple growers.
   “I believe if we had country-oforigin labeling that the consumers would buy U.S. all the time,” Barrett said.
   Allen, the head of the New York apple growers group, said it would be hard to promote U.S. apples as being better than foreign-grown apples if consumers can’t be sure where they have been grown.
   One bad apple, he said, might give all apples a bad name.

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Bank of International Settlements:
Credit Boom May Spark Depression

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) is warning that the global economy could be on the brink of a major depression similar to the one that occurred in the 1930s.

The BIS said that years of loose monetary policy have fueled a dangerous credit bubble leaving the global economy more vulnerable to an economic catastrophe than is generally understood.

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In its 77th Annual Report for the financial year April 1, 2006-March 31, 2007 that was submitted to the BIS’ annual general meeting held in Basel on June 24, the BIS — which one source described as "the ultimate bank of central bankers" — noted that the Great Depression that began in 1929 caught many off guard and unprepared.

"Virtually nobody foresaw the Great Depression of the 1930s, or the crises which affected Japan and southeast Asia in the early and late 1990s. In fact, each downturn was preceded by a period of non-inflationary growth exuberant enough to lead many commentators to suggest that a 'new era' had arrived," said the bank.

Several worrying signs, including mass issuance of new types of credit instruments, soaring levels of household debt, extreme appetite for risk shown by investors and entrenched imbalances in the world currency system, have all made the Bank wary the global economy is at serious risk.

The BIS pointed to China as a possible spark that could cause a sudden global downturn.

The BIS said "China may have repeated the disastrous errors made by Japan in the 1980s when Tokyo let rip with excess liquidity." "The Chinese economy seems to be demonstrating very similar, disquieting symptoms," the BIS claimed, noting China's credit and asset boom.

The Bank described China's booming economy as "unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable" — a comment apparently made by Chinese premier Wen Jiabao.
The BIS also took a swipe at the U.S. Federal Reserve, noting that the central bank was rethinking the easy credit policies of former Fed chief Alan Greenspan.

The BIS was not sanguine about the dollar, citing America's huge trade and deficit imbalances with U.S. external liabilities growing to over $4 trillion from 2001 to 2005.

"The dollar clearly remains vulnerable to a sudden loss of private sector confidence," the BIS report stated.

Worrisome too is the bubble created by private equity deals and hedge fund activity.

"Sooner or later the credit cycle will turn and default rates will begin to rise," the BIS said.

"The levels of leverage employed in private equity transactions have raised questions about their longer-term sustainability. The strategy depends on the availability of cheap funding,"

The warnings of the BIS should not come as a surprise to readers of MoneyNews.com. While we are not predicting a 1930's style depression, we have warned that a global credit boom has put that global economy in jeapordy.

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Feds find problems, put hold on farmed seafood from China
BY ANDREW BRIDGES The Associated Press

   WASHINGTON — Farmed seafood joined tires, toothpaste and toy trains on the list of tainted and defective products from China that could be hazardous to a person’s health.
   Federal health officials said Thursday that they were detaining three types of Chinese fish — catfish, basa and dace — as well as shrimp and eel after repeated testing has turned up contamination with drugs unapproved in the United States for use in farmed seafood.
   The officials said there was no immediate health risk and stopped short of ordering an outright ban.
   The Food and Drug Administration announcement was only the latest in an expanding series of problems with imported Chinese products that seemingly permeate U.S. society.
   Beyond the fish, federal regulators have warned consumers in recent weeks about lead paint in toy trains, defective tires, and toothpaste made with diethylene glycol, a toxic ingredient more commonly found in antifreeze. All the products were imported from China.
   China, meanwhile, insisted Thursday that the safety of its products was “guaranteed,” making a rare direct comment on spreading international fears over tainted and adulterated exports.
   FDA officials said the levels of the drugs in the seafood was low. The FDA isn’t asking for stores or consumers to toss any of the suspect seafood.
   “In order to get cancer in lab animals you have to feed fairly high levels of the drug over a long term,” said Dr. David Acheson, the FDA’s assistant commissioner for food protection. “We’re talking not days, weeks, not even months but years. At these levels you might not reach that level, but we don’t want to take a chance.”
   He added, “We don’t want to be alarmist here. … it’s a low likelihood.”
   The FDA said sampling of Chinese imported fish between October and May repeatedly found traces of the antibiotics nitrofuran and fluoroquinolone, as well as the antifungals malachite green and gentian violet. Of particular concern are the fluoroquinolones, a family of widely used human antibiotics that the FDA forbids in seafood in part to prevent bacteria from developing resistance to these important drugs. The best known example is ciprofloxacin, sold as Cipro, which made headlines as a treatment during the 2001 anthrax attacks.
   The FDA will allow individual shipments of the five seafood species into the country if a company can show the products are free of residues of these drugs.
   “This action will put a hold on the products of concern at the port of entry. This shifts the burden of proof back to the importer to prove to us that it is safe,” Acheson said.
   China is the third largest exporter of seafood to the United States, according to the FDA. More than half of its global seafood exports are farmed. But only about 5 percent of farmed Chinese fish is inspected by the FDA, agency officials said.
   The use of drugs in foreign fish farming operations has long been a concern of federal and state regulators. Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi recently banned imports of catfish from China after tests detected antibiotics not approved for use in humans.
   “Clearly the addition of these drugs, it’s a deliberate event,” Margaret Glavin, the FDA’s associate commissioner for regulatory affairs, told reporters. “If they stop adding them the problem is going to go away.”
   The FDA acted after finding problems with 15 percent of the Chinese seafood it tested. Glavin said the FDA also has found companies in the Philippines and Mexico using the drugs and has issued similar import alerts for those firms’ products.  

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Pope calls on 12 million Catholics in China to unite
BY NICOLE WINFIELD The Associated Press

   VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI made his most signifi cant attempt to unite China’s 12 million Catholics Saturday, urging the underground faithful and followers of the state-run church to overcome decades of animosity and distrust.
   Benedict lamented the lack of religious freedoms in China and called the government-sanctioned church “incompatible” with Catholic doctrine for appointing bishops without Vatican approval. But he also said he hoped the Vatican could reach an agreement with Beijing authorities on nominations.
   In an unprecedented gesture, Benedict revoked 1988 Vatican regulations that had called for limiting contact with China’s offi - cial clergy and excommunicating bishops consecrated without the pope’s consent.
   The pope’s comments came in a letter translated into five languages — including Mandarin in both traditional and simplified characters — a sign the Vatican wanted it widely read. It issued two accompanying documents highlighting key points and posted the letter on the Vatican’s Web site.
   However, Liu Bainian, the vice chairman of the state-run China Patriotic Catholic Association, said Saturday he had not seen the letter and that the church had no immediate plans to read it out to the faithful or distribute it.
   Qin Gang, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, said China would “continue to have a frank, constructive dialogue with the Vatican in order to resolve differences between the two sides.”
   China forced its Roman Catholics to cut ties with the Vatican in 1951, shortly after the officially atheist Communist Party took power. Worship is allowed only in government-controlled churches, which recognize the pope as a spiritual leader but appoint their own priests and bishops.
   Millions of Chinese, however, belong to unofficial congregations that are not registered with the authorities and have remained loyal to Rome.
   Several times in the letter, Benedict praised the Catholics who had resisted pressure to join the offi cial church. But he also urged them to forgive and reconcile with followers of the state-run church for the sake of unity.
   “Indeed, the purification of memory, the pardoning of wrongdoers, the forgetting of injustices suffered and the loving restoration to serenity of troubled hearts ... can require moving beyond personal positions or viewpoints, born of painful or difficult experiences,” he wrote.
   Benedict referred repeatedly to the “Catholic Church in China” without distinguishing between the divisions.
   “He underlines the unity of the church, which is fundamental because with this affirmation reconciliation becomes possible,” said the Rev. Bernardo Cervellera, director of AsiaNews, a missionary news agency close to the Vatican.
   China’s Foreign Ministry called on the Vatican not to interfere in Beijing’s internal affairs in the name of religion. It also urged the Vatican to sever ties with rival Taiwan.
   The Vatican said it was prepared “at any time” to move its diplomatic representation from Taiwan — which split from China in 1949 — to Beijing when an agreement with the government is reached.
   The Cardinal Kung Foundation, a U.S.-based foundation that supports the underground church, said the clandestine priests “will follow the pope’s guidelines and instructions.” In an e-mail to The Associated Press, the foundation relayed what it said was the initial opinion of some underground clergy in China.
   “He truly respects and hopes for total, genuine religious freedom in China and views it as essential for the normalization of relations,” the clergy said. “We hope and pray that the Chinese government will understand these very important points.”
   Benedict cited the church law that calls for automatic excommunication of any bishop ordained by the official church without the consent of the pope.
   But he highlighted mitigating circumstances, saying clergy were often pressured to join the official church or face persecution, and he left it up to individual bishops to decide how to proceed.
   In another measure to eliminate divisions, Benedict also revoked special Vatican allowances for underground bishops trying to ordain new priests and perform other duties. The allowances had been granted because publicly celebrating the rites in traditional ways could have attracted attention and resulted in retaliation.

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China finds problems with kids' snacks  
  
By ANITA CHANG, Associated Press
Tuesday, July 3, 2007

BEIJING -- Chinese inspectors found excessive amounts of additives and preservatives in dozens of children's snacks and seized hundreds of bottles of fake human blood protein from hospitals, officials said Tuesday.
  
China's dismal health and safety record -- both within and outside its borders -- has increasingly come under the spotlight as its goods make their way to global markets. Major buyers like the United States, Japan, and the European Union have pushed Beijing to improve inspections.

China accused the media of hyping the problems.

"I think it would be better if the media would stop playing up this issue," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters.

"China has taken measures and enacted relevant legislation regarding inspection and monitoring of its food export process. China has been very responsible in this regard to ensure the good quality and safety of its exports," he said.

Inspectors in southwest China's Guangxi region found excessive additives and preservatives in nearly 40 percent of 100 children's snacks sampled during the second quarter of 2007, according to a report on China's central government Web site.

The snacks -- including soft drinks, candied fruits, gelatin desserts and some types of crackers -- were taken from 70 supermarkets, department stores and wholesale markets in seven cities in the region, it said.

Only 35 percent of gelatin desserts sampled met food standards, the report said, while two types of candied fruit contained 63 times the permitted amount of artificial sweetener.

The report did not say whether any snacks were recalled or if any manufacturers faced discipline. Calls to the Guangxi Industrial and Commercial bureau rang unanswered Tuesday.

Some 420 bottles of fake blood protein, albumin, were found at hospitals in Hubei province but none had been used to treat patients, Liu Jinai, an official with the inspection division of the provincial food and drug administration, said in a telephone interview. No deaths or illnesses were reported.

A shortage of albumin triggered a nationwide investigation in March into whether fakes were being sold.

A state media report last month centered on an inquiry in the northeastern province of Jilin, where 59 hospitals and pharmacies sold more than 2,000 bottles of counterfeit blood protein. One person died from use of the fakes, state media said.

Albumin is a primary protein in human plasma that is important in maintaining blood volume. It is used to treat conditions including shock, burns, liver failure and pancreatitis, and is needed by patients undergoing heart surgery.

Chinese authorities have struggled with recalls following the widespread sale of fake polio vaccines, vitamins and baby formula. Such incidents threaten both public health and faith in the government's ability to control crime and corruption and ensure safety of food and drug supplies.

In May, the country's former top drug regulator was sentenced to death for taking bribes to approve substandard medicines, including an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths.

Fears that China's chronic food safety problems were going global surfaced earlier this year with the deaths of dogs and cats in North America blamed on Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine.
U.S. authorities have also turned away or recalled toxic fish, juice containing unsafe color additives and popular toy trains decorated with leaded paint. Chinese-made toothpaste has also been banned by numerous countries in North and South America and Asia for containing diethylene glycol, or DEG, a toxic ingredient more commonly found in antifreeze.

Beijing has striven to appear active in cleaning up problem areas. Inspectors recently announced they had closed 180 food factories in China in the first half of this year and seized tons of candy, pickles, crackers and seafood tainted with formaldehyde, illegal dyes and industrial wax.

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EDITORIALS
Beware those cheap Chinese imports

   Stories of tainted food and other harmful exports from China have been appearing with alarming frequency of late, but at last it appears that the governments of both China and the United States have started to take the problem more seriously. They need to take it a lot more seriously, as it has become increasingly apparent that many Chinese businesses are unscrupulous as a matter of course. In the meantime, consumers need to pay more attention where their food comes from and think twice before buying the cheapest imports.
   Last winter’s contaminated dog food scandal was bad enough; now it’s the lives of humans being endangered by such items as poisonous toothpaste, toy trains with lead paint, tires without standardized tread-separation technology and, last week, farm-raised seafood laden with unhealthy amounts of antibiotics and food additives.
   None of the antibiotics or food additives identified in the Food and Drug Administration’s “import alert” on shrimp, catfish, eel, basa and dace were legal. Some were known carcinogens, while others are believed to increase resistance to antibiotics in humans.
   This is no small problem because 22 percent of our imported seafood — $1.8 billion worth last year — comes from China. And the failure rates for Chinese seafood inspections are dismally high: Of the 125 total seafood shipments refused by the FDA last year, 63 percent were Chinese.
   And yet the FDA has been doing fewer lab checks on imported seafood every year — from 0.88 percent of all shipments in 2003 to 0.59 percent last year. While it’s gratifying that the FDA isn’t afraid to send tainted products back, as it did last week, it’s clear from China’s dismal track record — with fish, other food and manufactured goods as well, that a much more watchful eye needs to be kept on its imports.
   After finding 23,000 food-safety infractions, the Chinese government did shut down 180 food manufacturers last week and acknowledged systemic problems in its food supply. But until it can demonstrate a sustained commitment to fixing its mess, both the U.S. government and U.S. consumers need to be careful.  

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China product recalls make consumers wary
Country’s many small producers often sidestep food safety rules
BY AUDRA ANG The Associated Press

   XIAMEN, China — Perched on stools, four workers stuff freshly made noodles into plastic bags on the ground floor of the two-story Lin family home. A black-and-white mutt wanders lazily around their feet. Flies circle and land at will.
   Bags and basins cover almost every inch of a concrete floor that is partly damp, partly sticky with dough. Weak sunshine through the front door provides the only light in the sweltering room.
   These noodles aren’t exported; they’re only sold locally. But the hidden and unregulated nature of the Lins’ business — and countless others like it — helps to explain why China is caught in a food crisis.
   “We’re not allowed to apply for a permit to make food because this is our home, and we’re not supposed to work out of it,” says Lin, who squeezes out a living through his illegal noodle business, nestled in a dusty warren of workshops and residences on the edge of this port city of 1.6 million.
   “Of course we can’t meet national food safety standards,” his wife, Chen, says. They refuse to give their full names and fear talking to reporters. If anyone finds out, she adds, “my family will starve.”
   China faces an uphill battle as it rushes to fix its regulatory system amid a raft of disclosures of tainted exports to the U.S. and other major markets.
   “It is becoming increasingly urgent to raise the food safety standards to international levels,” the state-run China Daily newspaper editorialized last week.
   China’s reputation has collapsed in recent months since deadly toxins and dangerously high levels of chemicals were found in exports ranging from frozen fish to pet food.
   The discovery of diethylene glycol, a thickening agent in antifreeze, as a cheap sweetener in Chinese-made toothpaste has resulted in bans in Asia and North and South America. On Friday, U.S. regulators ordered a recall of three more Chinese-made products deemed dangerous to children: jewelry decorated with lead paint and building sets with small parts that pose a choking hazard.
   “It was bound to happen sooner or later,” said Michael F. Moriarty, vice president of A.T. Kearney, a Chicago-based consulting firm that recently put the cost of fi xing China’s food safety system at $100 billion. “China is a very entrepreneurial supply market, and enthusiasm sometimes outweighs prudence,” he said.
   The world’s most-populous country is awash in tiny momand-pop operations. Chinese authorities announced last month that they had closed 180 food factories since December after inspectors found formaldehyde, illegal dyes and industrial wax being used to make candy, pickles, crackers and seafood. All had fewer than 10 employees.
   Another regulating agency said it shut 152,000 unlicensed food producers and retailers last year for making and selling fake and lowquality products.
   But new ones keep popping up. About three-quarters of the country’s million or so registered foodprocessing plants are small and privately owned, according to the China Daily. That doesn’t include the unregistered ones.
   The most distinguishing feature of China’s central food-safety regulatory system is that there isn’t one. Responsibility is split among at least six agencies, including those that handle health, agriculture and commerce. The lines of authority are ill-defined, and different bodies oversee different laws.
   “Things fall through,” said Philippa Kelly, a Beijing-based consultant who works with the Chinese government on food-safety issues.
BRIBERY RAMPANT
   Adding to the problem is rampant corruption. Officials can be bribed, and instead of shutting down illegal operations, many regulators just impose fines so they can collect more money in the future, Yang said.
   Chinese officials insist that exports are safe, though they have also called for stricter inspections and threatened violators with punishment in an apparent effort to reassure international customers.
   “Ninety-nine percent of food exported to the United States was up to safety standards over the past two years, which is a very high percentage,” says Li Yuanping, a Chinese official in charge of imported and exported food safety.
   Exports are subject to tighter specifications and multiple checks by authorities both in China and importing countries. But there are gaps, Yang said, because “regulatory agencies are often short on staff and funds in various localities and cannot fully police the manufacturers.”
   Some companies do it right.
   Amid the banana trees and industrial parks on the outskirts of Xiamen, Donghai Frozen Foods Co. Ltd. learned the price of failing to keep up with international standards.
   Two years ago, it had to discard 2,000 tons of “edamame,” a boiled soybean snack, because they did not meet new Japanese pesticide regulations that had come into effect after the soybeans were processed.
   Donghai, which has 300 foodhandling employees, ships 7,000 to 15,000 tons of frozen vegetables a year, mainly to Japan, the U.S. and Australia.
   On a recent afternoon, soy beans arrived by the sack from the company’s fields and were briskly unloaded by workers.
   In an airy building, two women in white face masks filled a huge metal steamer with crates full of cleaned pods. Others poured cooked beans into crates of ice for cooling. Anything that dropped on the floor was discarded.
   Guo Mingfeng, head of administrative affairs at the Taiwanese-owned company, said five to 10 self-inspections are performed during processing and more checks are done by both China and the importing country.
   “We know what happens from field to factory,” he said. “We have full control of the process.”
   Ultimately, experts say, the answer to China’s woes lies in efforts like Donghai’s.
   “Food or indeed any other product is not really improved by legislation or government control,” said John Chapple, who heads Sinoanalytica, a food analysis laboratory in the coastal Chinese city of Qingdao. “It is improved because the people producing it see the commercial benefit in making it happen.”
   The problem, he said is that despite exceptions such as Donghai, “it’s not happening in China yet.”

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Imports nearly tripled over 5 years
BY MARTIN CRUTSINGER The Associated Press

   WASHINGTON — First it was pet food that sickened dogs and cats. Then came warnings about toothpaste, toy trains, car tires and several types of fi sh.
   The warnings had one thing in common — all of the products came from China. And that has people worried.
   “I’m scared to death. We are dependent on our government inspecting things,” said Joyce Simple, a church secretary, interviewed on a recent shopping trip to a Wal-Mart in Houston. “I would be careful of anything that came from China.”
   For Emily Pokora, a 24-year-old law school student in Phoenix, the problem hit even closer to home. Her cat got violently sick in March after eating tainted pet food. While the cat survived, the episode has shaken Pokora’s faith in the products she buys.
   “You go to the store and you can’t trust anymore that it’s not going to kill your animal or hurt you,” she said.
   The string of recalls has not gone unnoticed by shoppers, based on Associated Press interviews around the country.
   “Here we’re buying all of these products from China and they’re not adhering to our standards. It’s very disturbing,” said Joanne Metler, a community college teacher in Chicago.
   The food and safety issues are one more irritant in a trade relationship already strained by a ballooning U.S. deficit with China. That deficit hit $233 billion last year, the highest ever recorded with a single country. Imports of Chinese products into the United States totaled $288 billion while U.S. exports to China totaled $55 billion. That means for every $1 in goods the United States sells China, China sells the United States more than $5 in products.
PRODUCTS FLOOD U.S.
   Chinese exports to the United States last year were nearly triple the level of just five years ago. The flood of Chinese products has increased since China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001, a development that removed many of the remaining U.S. barriers.
   China is now the dominant supplier in a whole range of areas that go far beyond the athletic shoes and low-priced clothing that have traditionally displayed the Made in China label.
   Meanwhile, Cao Wenzhuang, a former department head at China’s drug regulation agency, was sentenced to death Friday on bribery charges. A department director at the State Food and Drug Administration, he was given the death sentence with a two-year reprieve on charges of accepting bribes and neglecting official duties, said his lawyer, Gao Zicheng.
   Cao, who oversaw the pharmaceutical registration department, had been secretary to Zheng Xiaoyu, the head of the agency, in the 1980s. Zheng was sentenced to death in May for taking bribes to approve substandard medicines, including an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths.
   In the pharmaceuticals department, Cao, 45, had the power to approve pharmaceutical production in China from 2002 to 2006.
   Of the toys sold in America, 80 percent are produced in China. China has become the top foreign source of tires in the United States with imports from all countries accounting for about 40 percent of the U.S. market last year. China is now the world’s leading supplier of seafood, shipping $1.9 billion worth of fish and shellfish to the United States last year, making it the third biggest foreign supplier in the U.S. market.
DEFECTS ON INCREASE
   The increase in imports, however, has been accompanied by rising numbers of defects being discovered. The number of Chinese-made products that are being recalled in the United States has doubled in the last five years. Chinese imports accounted for more than 60 percent of the recalls announced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission this year and all of the 24 toy recalls.
   “The government of China is struggling to enforce the limited standards they have given the hundreds of thousands of Chinese firms in the export business,” said Nicholas Lardy, a China expert at the Peterson Institute, a Washington think tank.
   Chinese officials, while accusing the media of hyping the problems, have moved to show they are taking the concerns seriously. China announced last week that it had closed down 180 food manufacturers that were found to have used industrial chemicals and additives in their products.
   Donald Mays, senior director for product safety for Consumer Reports, said that many of the problems in China feature an element of unethical business practices.
   “Pressure from the importers to keep prices low can sometimes force the factories to cut corners,” Mays said. “That could mean leaving out a key safety feature.”
   One of the toy recalls involved 1.5 million of the popular Thomas & Friends trains because the toys had been coated at a factory in China with lead paint, which can damage brain cells, especially in children.
   The government ordered Foreign Tire Sales of Union, N.J., to recall 450,000 tires after the company notified regulators that some of the Chinese-made tires were missing a safety feature that keeps the tire tread from separating. The Chinese company denied the accusation.
   The pet food products had been found to contain Chinese wheat flour spiked with the chemical melamine to make it appear like more expensive, protein-rich ingredients, while the Chinese-made toothpaste was found to contain an ingredient often used in antifreeze. The Food and Drug Administration on June 28 placed restrictions on imports of Chinese shrimp, catfi sh, eel, basa and dace after finding residues of drugs the FDA does not allow in fi sh.
   And on Thursday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall of Chinesemade jewelry that the agency said could cause lead poisoning and a magnetic building set and plastic castles with small parts that CPSC said could choke children.
CONGRESSIONAL CRITICS
   These problems have caught the attention of Congress, with members already highly critical of what they see as unfair trade practices they contend have pushed the defi - cits higher and contributed to the loss of 3 million U.S. manufacturing jobs since 2000.
   “Tires, toys, toothpaste, pet food, fish — day after day and product after product, evidence of lax product regulation in China and inadequate import security in the U.S. mounts,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, a frequent critic of China.
   “There’s no question that too many Chinese manufacturers and food producers put the bottom line ahead of safety,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. “The fact that every week we have to frantically pull Chinese goods off store shelves shows that our safeguards are failing.”
   Schumer called for creation of an import czar in the Commerce Department to better coordinate import inspections being done across a range of agencies.
   Critics also have complained about budget cuts during the Bush administration that have left various federal regulatory agencies stretched thin. But industry groups said much of the impetus for cracking down on abuses will come from individual companies concerned about protecting their reputation with the public.
   “Any time this happens, we go back to the table to see what we can do to improve our system,” said Carter Keithley, president of the Toy Industry Association, which represents American toy companies. He said his group has been holding seminars in China for the past 11 years to teach companies there how to make toys more safely.
PRICE LURES SHOPPERS
   Many shoppers in the AP interviews said they still planned to buy Chinese products because of the low prices.
   “There’s always a trade off — quality versus cost,” said Panneer Gangatharan, a 31-year-old software consultant in Pasadena, Calif. “I’m not sure how feasible it is for the United States to do anything about it, because the volume of products we’re buying from overseas is huge.”
   Economists say it is unlikely that the current uproar over Chinese goods will make a dent in the flood of imports from that country or America’s trade deficit with China.
   “Ultimately, the U.S. consumer is attracted to cheap Chinese goods. As long as they keep the price low, U.S. consumers will keep buying,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com.
   Many analysts believe the U.S. deficit with China will keep rising until China starts heeding the Bush administration’s suggestions to overhaul its economy so growth is based more on domestic demand and less on exports. The administration, led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, is conducting high-level talks aimed at getting the Chinese government to make changes such as revaluing its currency to deal with the huge trade imbalance.
   But even if that occurs, analysts don’t expect any significant improvement for several years.
   “There is so much momentum behind our deficit with China that I don’t think it will turn around very quickly,” said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s in New York.  

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BEIJING(AP) China executed the former head of its food and drug watchdog on Tuesday for approving untested medicine in exchange for cash, the strongest signal yet from Beijing that it is serious about tackling its product safety crisis.

The execution of former State Food and Drug Administration director Zheng Xiaoyu was confirmed by state television and the official Xinhua News Agency.

During Zheng's tenure from 1998 to 2005, his agency approved six medicines that turned out to be fake, and the drug-makers used falsified documents to apply for approvals, according to previous state media reports. One antibiotic caused the deaths of at least 10 people.

"The few corrupt officials of the SFDA are the shame of the whole system and their scandals have revealed some very serious problems," agency spokeswoman Yan Jiangying said at a news conference held to highlight efforts to improve China's track record on food and drug safety.

Yan was asked to comment on Zheng's sentence and that of his subordinate, Cao Wenzhuang, a former director of SFDA's drug registration department who was last week sentenced to death for accepting bribes and dereliction of duty. Cao was given a two-year reprieve, a ruling which is usually commuted to life in prison if the convict is deemed to have reformed.

"We should seriously reflect and learn lessons from these cases. We should step up our efforts to ensure food and drug safety, which is what we are doing now and what we will do in the future," Yan said.

Zheng, 63, was convicted of taking cash and gifts worth $832,000 when he was in charge of the State Food and Drug Administration.

His death sentence was unusually heavy even for China, believed to carry out more court-ordered executions than all other nations combined, and indicates the leadership's determination to confront the country's dire product safety record.

Quoted from Shadow

The good ole USA may have it's problems but it's the best country in the world.

Quoted Text

Today, the term "siesta" refers to a short nap (15 to 30 minutes) taken after the midday meal. Siestas are traditionally no longer than 30 minutes and are more of a light rest than any kind of serious sleep. Other names for a siesta may include: cat nap, snooze, doze, kip, winks, power nap, or simply, afternoon nap.

In Argentina, the siesta is supposed to be between 13:00 and 16:00, and in some regions, such as Santiago del Estero, it's called "sacred" because people don't want to be disturbed. Business hours in these regions are usually 8:00 to 12:00 and 16:00 to 20:00. Other business hours (extended) vary between 6:00 to 13:00 and from 15:00 to 21:00, but most either add or shift 30 minutes to the regular 8-12/16-20 times. In bigger cities such as Buenos Aires, and with the time and money it takes to commute, businesses just use the regular 9-to-6 time.

In Malta, business hours are usually between 9:00 and 12:30 and from 16:00 to 19:00 to enable workmen to return home during the break, have lunch and possibly take a siesta. Due to the shortness of distance between the place of business and their residence, this practice is not uncommon.

Older, pre-teenage children are usually incapable of napping, but acquire the ability to nap as teenagers.[1] Some people sleep the whole time (up to two hours), but most people watch television or take a short 15 to 30 minute nap. In any case, the streets are deserted at the siesta time in those cities.

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Shanghai teen pregnancy blamed on Web  
  
Associated Press
Wednesday, July 11, 2007

SHANGHAI, China -- Nearly half of pregnant teens in China's financial center Shanghai met their partners on the Internet, according to a newspaper report that also spotlighted widespread ignorance about sexual health.
  
Fully 46 percent of the more than 20,000 girls who called the city's pregnancy hot line during the past two years said they had sex with boys they met online, the China Daily said, citing Dr. Zhang Zhengrong of Shanghai's No. 411 Hospital.

Most of the would-be fathers disappeared after being told of the pregnancies, while in some cases the girls did not even know their partners' true names, the report said.

The report said calls to the hot line have shot up 12 percent since the start of school holidays, which began two weeks ago and run through August.

Earlier reports have cited a 30 percent increase in abortions by teens during holidays, with high school students between 16 and 18 accounting for a growing percentage of those seeking to end their pregnancies.

Zhang said callers to the hot line generally knew little about birth control or the physiological aspects of sex and widely considered abortions to be harmless.

About 10 percent who called had undergone multiple abortions, while "there were some who were unaware they were even pregnant until very late," Zhang was quoted as saying.

While underage sex remains taboo in China, abortion is widely available without the requirement that parents be notified. China has long promoted abortion as part of its attempts to enforce policies limiting most families to just one child.

Zhang said 79 percent of high school and university girls cited the Internet as their main source of information about sex in a survey conducted by her hospital.

Just 7.9 percent of parents discussed sexual matters with their daughters, she said, while 46 percent of parents said it was the responsibility of schools to provide sex education. The survey gathered results from 2,043 parents, 2,680 teachers and 1,577 teens.

Quoted from senders

NYC has those 'sleep cafe's'.......the 'city that never sleeps' has sleep cafe's.......is that an oxymoron or just American advertising......

As for the streets paved in gold......she must not know where oil comes from or what it is called...BLACK GOLD..isn't blacktop an oil derivitive??.....

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Blacktop may refer to:

asphalt concrete, a composite material commonly used for construction of pavement, highways and parking lots
bituminous macadams
tarmac
"Blacktop", a song by Helmet from their 1990 album Strap It On
"Blacktop", a 5 piece rock band from Derby, UK.
"Blacktop", is the 2nd track of the album Aerocalexico by Calexico
A slang term, predominantly used in inner city areas, referring to any area of hard standing that is used for recreational basketball. Used regardless of the material from which the hard standing is formed.

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China to begin Olympic food checks  
  
By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press
Thursday, July 12, 2007

BEIJING -- China will begin a daily food safety reporting system next month during test events for the 2008 Beijing Olympics in a bid to reassure the world that it is serious about cracking down on unsafe practices.
  
The system will be put in place Aug. 8 in Beijing, where a series of 11 trials will be held for Olympic organizers to assess their transportation systems, technology and logistics.

Monitoring will start from the origin of production and continue through processing, packaging, transportation and distribution, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said Thursday.

"There will be continuous supervision," the quality watchdog said on its Web site.

The reports, which would include details of any food safety accidents, will be overseen by the Beijing Municipal Food Safety Office. The quality administration did not give details, and a man who answered the telephone at the food safety office refused to give any information or his name.

Confidence in the safety of Chinese exports has severely waned internationally, as the list of products found tainted with dangerous levels of toxins and chemicals grows longer by the day.

China has taken significant steps in recent days to clean up its dubious product safety record, including executing the former head of its drug regulation agency for taking bribes and banning the use of a chemical found in antifreeze in the production of toothpaste.

In a report aired Wednesday night, China Central Television showed how a bun maker in a district in Beijing used cardboard picked off the street as filling for his product.

The undercover investigation report showed how squares of cardboard were first soaked to a pulp in a plastic basin of caustic soda -- a chemical base commonly used in manufacturing paper and soap -- then chopped into tiny morsels with a cleaver. Fatty pork and powdered seasoning were stirred in and minutes later, steaming buns were shown on screen.

This week, officials have vowed that the Beijing Games -- a source of tremendous national pride -- will be part of the crackdown on unsafe food.

Sun Wenxu, an official with the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, told reporters that athletes, coaches, officials and others can be assured of safe meals.

Organizers are also taking measures to ensure athletes' food is free of substances that could trigger a positive result in tests for banned performance-enhancing drugs.

Late Wednesday, China banned toothpaste manufacturers from using diethylene glycol, or DEG -- which can cause kidney failure, paralysis and death, but has been used as a low-cost substitute for harmless glycerin, a sweetener in many drugs.

Chinese-made toothpaste containing DEG has been yanked from sale in North and South America, Europe and Asia.

Although there have been no reports of health problems stemming from the toothpaste, dozens of people in Panama died last year after taking medicine contaminated with DEG imported from China and passed off as glycerin.

China had never had guidelines banning DEG as a toothpaste ingredient. However, a statement on the quality administration's Web site said the vast majority of Chinese toothpaste manufacturers had already stopped using it in order to reassure consumers, and "to avoid unnecessary losses incurred by exporting manufacturers."
But it said the ban also covers imported products, and reiterated China's official stance that DEG is safe in small amounts, based on Chinese health experts' tests in 2000.

"Currently there's no evidence to show that the use of DEG in toothpaste directly causes cases of poisoning in people," it said.

The State Food and Drug Administration or SFDA announced stricter rules for approving new medicines Wednesday, a day after the agency's former head, Zheng Xiaoyu, was executed for taking bribes and gifts in exchange for letting substandard and fake products onto the domestic market. One, an antibiotic, has been blamed for at least 10 deaths.

Starting Oct. 1, the drug registration and approval process will be made transparent to curb power abuse and corruption, the state-run China Daily newspaper on Thursday quoted Wu Zhen, the agency's deputy chief, as saying.

A special panel will approve new drugs instead of a single person or department, and local watchdogs will be authorized to conduct preliminary approval procedures -- unlike before, when power was centralized, Wu said.

"Transparency is the enemy of corruption," he was quoted as saying.

Companies which provide false information or samples will not be allowed to apply for drug approval for up to three years, and the SFDA will make surprise spot checks on drug producers, he said.

Quoted Text

Beijing steamed buns include cardboard  
  
Associated Press
Thursday, July 12, 2007

BEIJING -- Chopped cardboard, softened with an industrial chemical and flavored with fatty pork and powdered seasoning, is a main ingredient in batches of steamed buns sold in one Beijing neighborhood, state television said.
  
The report, aired late Wednesday on China Central Television, highlights the country's problems with food safety despite government efforts to improve the situation.

Countless small, often illegally run operations exist across China and make money cutting corners by using inexpensive ingredients or unsavory substitutes. They are almost impossible to regulate.

State TV's undercover investigation features the shirtless, shorts-clad maker of the buns, called baozi, explaining the contents of the product sold in Beijing's sprawling Chaoyang district.

Baozi are a common snack in China, with an outer skin made from wheat or rice flour and and a filling of sliced pork. Cooked by steaming in immense bamboo baskets, they are similar to but usually much bigger than the dumplings found on dim sum menus familiar to many Americans.

The hidden camera follows the man, whose face is not shown, into a ramshackle building where steamers are filled with the fluffy white buns, traditionally stuffed with minced pork.

The surroundings are filthy, with water puddles and piles of old furniture and cardboard on the ground.

"What's in the recipe?" the reporter asks. "Six to four," the man says.

"You mean 60 percent cardboard? What is the other 40 percent?" asks the reporter. "Fatty meat," the man replies.

The bun maker and his assistants then give a demonstration on how the product is made.

Squares of cardboard picked from the ground are first soaked to a pulp in a plastic basin of caustic soda -- a chemical base commonly used in manufacturing paper and soap -- then chopped into tiny morsels with a cleaver. Fatty pork and powdered seasoning are stirred in.

Soon, steaming servings of the buns appear on the screen. The reporter takes a bite.

"This baozi filling is kind of tough. Not much taste," he says. "Can other people taste the difference?"

"Most people can't. It fools the average person," the maker says. "I don't eat them myself."

The police eventually showed up and shut down the operation.

Quoted Text

Ordeal leaves family wary
Local couple troubled about food safety after kids' illness from snack  
  
By CATHLEEN F. CROWLEY, Staff writer
First published: Friday, July 13, 2007

The Scheels buy the best groceries for their 20-month-old triplets, Sydney, Cole and Michael. The toddlers rarely eat junk food. Organic, gourmet and fresh food are the staples of their diet.
"They eat better than us," said their mother, Elex Scheels.

  
That's why the Voorheesville family was shocked when they were swept into this spring's Veggie Booty salmonella outbreak.

Sydney and Cole were among 60 people nationwide and 15 in New York to suffer salmonella poisoning after eating the puffed rice and corn treats advertised as "gourmet" and "natural." Almost all of the victims were toddlers.

Veggie Booty and a sister product, Super Veggie Tings, suspected of being contaminated by seasoning imported from China. The products were recalled from store shelves on June 28. Two months earlier, Sydney and Cole had spiked fevers and suffered explosive diarrhea. Sydney was nearly hospitalized to treat her bloody bowel movements.

Now, when Elex and Patrick Scheels walk the health food aisles and organic section of their grocery store, they shop with skeptical eyes.

"What was so troubling about all of this is how out of your hands it is," said Patrick Scheels, who owns Capital Painting. "The ingredients could be from anywhere."

Overnight, the Scheels have become food safety advocates. They are considering joining a class-action lawsuit against the Veggie Booty manufacturer, and they want to see country-of-origin labels on food products. Elex Scheels, an associate director at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., plans to write Congress with their story.

"My goal at the end of the day is to do something to cause change," she said. "To make people change the way we are doing business with China and the other countries we are buying food from."

Reports of the tainted seasoning, pet food and seafood from China are fueling the campaign for country-of-origin labeling. Congress passed a law in 2002 requiring such labeling on agricultural products, but the meat and grocery industries successfully blocked the law from taking effect. The labels are required only on seafood.

The Scheels discovered Veggie Booty at a Trader Joe's outside the region, a grocery store known for its natural and organic food selections. Sydney and Cole love the treats.

The manufacturer, Robert's American Gourmet, is a family-owned company located on Long Island. Company founder Robert Ehrlich said he created the snacks as a healthy alternative for his own kids. Ehrlich told the Associated Press he suspected the contamination came from a seasoning manufactured in China that is used on Veggie Booty and Veggie Tings.

Ehrlich said Robert's American Gourmet bought the seasoning from Atlantic Quality Spice & Seasonings of Edison, N.J.

Atlantic Quality Spice & Seasonings said its suppliers say all its ingredients were salmonella-free. It has tested other products made with some of the same ingredients used to produce the seasoning, and the results have been negative for salmonella, said the company's president, Stan Gorski.

"We are confident none of the materials that went into other products were contaminated," Gorski said.


The particular strain of the bacteria, Salmonella Wandsworth, is a rare form that has never been associated with an outbreak in the United States.
The only previously documented outbreak of Wandsworth occurred in a Hong Kong hospital in the late 1970s, said Mark Sotir, an epidemiologist at the federal Centers for Disease Control who was involved in the Veggie Booty investigation.

Eight babies became ill in the Honk Kong incident and the source of the contamination was traced to a container where rectal thermometers were stored, Sotir said.

"We don't have a lot of information on it," he said about Wandsworth.

The unique fingerprint of the strain actually helped the epidemiologists. On average, five cases of Salmonella Wandsworth poisonings occur in the U.S. annually, but when public health officials saw the climbing number of cases this spring, they suspected a link.

"The outbreak showed us what's right about this country," said Dr. Laura Staff, the Albany pediatrician who treated Sydney and Cole.

Staff sent one of Sydney's dirty diapers to the state lab for testing, and during another visit, Sydney had a bout where "blood started shooting out of her rectum."

Tests came back positive for Salmonella Wandsworth. Cole picked it up a week later.

Brown-eyed Sydney withstood a 105.3 temperature and terrible bouts of diarrhea, much worse than her blue-eyed brother, Cole. Her parents bathed Sydney in ice water to keep her fever down and she lost 2.5 pounds from her 25-pound body.

"It was terrifying," Elex Scheels said.

Michael, whose curly hair and finicky eating habits separate him from his siblings, didn't get sick. But family's bulldog, Gus, caught the Salmonella.

The Scheels family fielded numerous calls from state health officials asking: Have you traveled to a foreign country recently? Have the children been around animals? What have the children eaten?

Then the CDC called and drilled down. What brand of chips did they eat? What flavor? Where did you buy them? The Scheels can't remember if they bought them in the Capital Region at Price Chopper or Hannaford.

Despite the family's devotion to organic and gourmet foods, there was nothing they could have done to prevent the poisoning, said Delia Hammock, nutrition director for the Good Housekeeping Research Institute.

"When it comes to food safety issues like food poisoning and food-borne illness, (organic and gourmet) don't make any difference," Hammock said. "You feel so vulnerable when something like this happens. It's like the bag of spinach. You can do everything right yourself, yet you can't protect you or your children against this."

Hammock, who oversees testing for the Good Housekeeping seal, has a history with Robert's American Gourmet. In 2002, she outed the company for inaccurate nutritional information on their Pirate's Booty snacks.

The nutrition label claimed the snack had 128 calories and 2.5 grams of fat, but an independent lab discovered the snack had 147 calories with a 8 grams of fat. Another lab found that Veggie Booty, which contains spinach and kale, had 10 grams of fat at the time, the same as a candy bar. The company recalled the snacks.
Be skeptical, Hammock advises.

"What does gourmet mean? Gourmet means nothing," she said. "It's more of a marketing term."

While food certified organic meets government guidelines prohibiting growth hormones, pesticides and antibiotics, the USDA makes no claims that organically produced food is safer or more nutritious than conventionally produced food.

No extra measures are taken to kill bacteria, Hammock said.

Sydney and Cole are healthy again and the triplets are back to their routine of standing in their cribs and dancing to children's music before they to go to sleep. Gus is his old self, too.

Cathleen F. Crowley can be reached at 454-5348, or by e-mail at ccrowley@timesunion.com.

Quoted Text

Check Chinese goods closer

  The expanding list of problem goods in recent months indicates an urgent need to strengthen the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s inspection capabilities. Just as important, the scares raised by Chinese food imports point to a basic need to cultivate multiple supply sources, thus reducing undue dependence on any one source.
   Unchecked, the escalating safety issues promise to undermine consumer confidence in imported foods, an expanding sector of the economy.
   --Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal

Quoted from Shadow

It seems that much of what we import from China is contaminated with something or another so it's time for stricter controls and inspections of all food stuffs coming from China, human and animal.

Quoted Text

"What was so troubling about all of this is how out of your hands it is," said Patrick Scheels, who owns Capital Painting. "The ingredients could be from anywhere."

Quoted Text

China halts imports of U.S. meat products
BY ANITA CHANG The Associated Press

   BEIJING — China has suspended imports of chicken feet, pig ears and other animal products from seven U.S. companies, including the world’s largest meat processor, in an apparent attempt to turn the tables on American complaints about tainted products from China.
   The American meat had contaminants including salmonella, feed additives and veterinary drugs, according to a list posted on the Web site of China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine late Friday.
   The U.S. and other countries have cracked down on Chinese products since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found in April that North American dogs and cats were poisoned by tainted Chinese pet food ingredients. Since then, a growing number of Chinese products have been found to be tainted with potentially toxic chemicals and other adulterants.
   In recent weeks, Chinese authorities have been prominently announcing their own rejections of imports, including U.S. orange pulp, dried apricots, raisins and health supplements — apparently to show that they are not the only ones with food safety problems.
   The Chinese agency said frozen poultry from Springdale, Ark.-based Tyson Foods Inc., the world’s largest meat processor, was contaminated with salmonella.
   Frozen chicken feet from Laurel, Miss.-based Sanderson Farms Inc. were tainted with residue of an antiparasite drug, and frozen pork ribs from Wichita, Kan.-based Cargill Meat Solutions Corp. contained the leanness-enhancing feed additive ractopamine, the agency said.
   Frozen pig ears from Kansas City, Mo.-based Van Luin Foods USA Inc. were found to contain ractopamin, frozen chicken feet from Atlanta-based Intervision Foods was tainted with salmonella and frozen pork from Atlanta’s AJC International Inc. was tainted with ractopamine, the agency said.
   Both stewed chicken feet and pig ears are popular dishes in China.
   Sausage casing from a seventh company, listed by the Chinese agency as “Thumph Foods,” was also found to contain ractopamine, according to the Chinese agency. It was not clear whether it was referring to Triumph Foods of St. Joseph, Mo.
   Mark Klein, a spokesman for Minneapolis-based Cargill Inc., disputed the Chinese inspectors’ fi ndings that his company’s products were tainted and said Cargill hoped to resolve the issue by working with U.S. and Chinese officials.
   “We’re proud of our products and our processes, and we’ll be delighted to talk about them with all concerned,” he said.
   Cargill is the parent company of Cargill Meat Solutions Corp., which as of 2005 was the ninth leading pork producer in the U.S., according to the National Pork Producers Council.
   Libby Lawson, a spokeswoman for Tyson Foods, said the company knew nothing about any tainted product.
   “We’re disappointed with this news from China and are investigating these claims, as this is the first we’ve heard of this development,” she said.  

Quoted Text

China not only nation exporting tainted food
BY TRACI CARL The Associated Press

   MEXICO CITY — Mexican cantaloupe irrigated with water from sewage-tainted rivers. Candy laced with lead. Chinese toothpaste is not the only concern for U.S. consumers wary of the health risks posed by imported goods.
   Producers in other developing nations are big violators of basic food safety standards, even as they woo consumers with a growing appetite for foods like pickled mangoes from India and winter-season fruits and vegetables from Mexico.
   On Wednesday, President Bush established a high-level government panel to recommend steps to guarantee the safety of food shipped into the U.S. and to improve policing of those imports.
   “The administration is concerned about the safety of imported products that Americans eat and use,” White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
   China, already under suspicion as the source of tainted toothpaste, contaminated fish and toxic medicine, had the largest number of violations in the past 12 months, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejecting 1,901 shipments of food or cosmetics. But India and Mexico weren’t far behind, with inspectors rejecting 1,787 and 1,560 shipments, respectively.
   The biggest reasons? Foods that are unapproved or contain poisons and pesticides. Some are simply dirty, with inspectors finding that the shipment “appears to consist in whole or in part of a filthy, putrid, or decomposed substance or be otherwise unfit for food.”
   And those are just the problems that are caught. FDA inspectors only have the money and resources to check about 1 percent of the 8.9 million imported food shipments a year. Many of those inspections target problem products from problem nations, like Indian relishes or Mexican cantaloupe.
   The FDA banned all cantaloupe from Mexico in 2002 after four salmonella outbreaks traced to the fruit killed two people in the United States and hospitalized at least 18 others.
   While some Mexican cantaloupe exporters have regained the FDA’s trust by adopting cleaner irrigation methods, Mexican melons are often contaminated by sewage-laced water. In June alone, the FDA rejected six shipments of Mexican cantaloupe, 4 percent of the 139 total shipments from Mexico, because of salmonella.
   Mexican green onions were blamed for a 2003 outbreak of hepatitis A in Pennsylvania that was traced to the Chi-Chi’s restaurant chain. Four people died and more than 600 people were sickened.
   And three Mexican candy manufacturers, including two subsidiaries of Mars Inc. and Hershey Co., agreed last year to lead testing and annual audits after The Orange County Register found that California state and federal regulators knew spicy Mexican candies could cause lead poisoning in children, but did nothing.
   Candy makers are still major violators, making up at least 15 percent of the FDA’s June rejections for Mexico after inspectors determined that shipments were filthy, unsafe or contained pesticides.
   In the same month, FDA inspectors determined that four shipments of oral electrolyte solution — used to treat dehydration in children with acute diarrhea or vomiting — contained unsafe coloring and false labeling.  

Quoted Text

Attacks on food from China take on racist tone
BY JEFF YANG Special to The Washington Post
Jeff Yang is the “Asian Pop” columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle’s Web site, SFGate.com, and a global strategist for Iconoculture.

   The French delight in preparing food; the Italians adore eating it. But no people on Earth are so engrossed in food as the Chinese, for whom it is not just craft, pleasure and sustenance but the fundamental building block of society. In the West, acquaintances greet one another with “How are you?” The Chinese ask, “Have you eaten?”
   So for the Chinese, tainted food is more than a health hazard — it’s a kind of sacrilege. As one Chinese shopper told National Public Radio, “People here think food is as important as the sky. If there’s something wrong with the food, it’s as if the sky is falling.”
   Nevertheless, China has been portrayed as a nation blind to hygiene and blissfully unconcerned about recent reports of food contamination. That’s troubling, because it reinforces the notion that befouled food is the consequence of a foul culture. Chef and gustatory adventurer Anthony Bourdain may have said it best in a 2006 Salon interview in which he noted that there’s “something kind of racist” about culinary xenophobia: “Fear of dirt is often indistinguishable from the fear of unnamed dirty people.”
   And this, in turn, spells danger. What one might call “food libel” has long been an aspect of a larger fear of China. The association of Chinese with dubious edibles has insinuated itself into our cultural consciousness in seemingly trivial ways: in schoolyard taunting, in sitcom gags about takeout food, in standup monologues about puppy chow mein.
RAISING STAKES
   But when the stakes are raised, as they have been by recent scandals, such jokes turn deadly serious. The fringes of the pundit set have already been intimating that these tainted-food incidents are deliberate. In May, the conservative news organ WorldNetDaily. com asked, “Is China Trying to Poison Americans and Their Pets?” The nativist drumbeat has since only pounded louder, suggesting that China has been waging a secret biowarfare campaign to destroy the United States from deep, deep within — planting WMDs in the Wal-Mart cart, if you will.
   Yellow-peril imagery has been oozing from the extreme margins into the mainstream. Recently, the Utah-based health food company Food for Health International even became the first to take this “China equals menace” theme to market, instituting a new label and ad campaign promoting its products as “China-Free.” There’s talk about calling the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing the B.Y.O. Olympics.
   The leading customer-advocacy blog Consumerist.com came up with a catchy nickname for the fiendish assault on American shoppers: “The Chinese Poison Train is still out there, lurking on a container ship headed our way,” editor Carey Greenberg-Berger warns in one May post. “Nobody knows when it will strike again.” You can imagine the silent-movie tableau: the fiendish Chinese Poison Train bearing down on the hapless American consumer, tied to the tracks by a nefarious evildoer with a Fu Manchu mustache.
   Of course, serious problems exist in China’s massive food-export complex, which is the source of the vast bulk of additives such as xanthan gum and ascorbic acid, as well as 12 percent of the world’s fruit and vegetables and about half of the global supply of farmraised fish. But many of these problems have stemmed from China’s embrace of capitalist ethics, unrestrained by the government oversight present in more established industrial economies.
   Ultimately, the reasons Chinese goods make up such an enormous part of the U.S. shopping basket are the same as those behind our undocumented-immigration quandary: Companies want higher profits, and consumers want lower prices. If Chinese sources were stripped from the food-industry supply chain, corporations would simply turn to other low-cost exporters, with comparably poor safety records.
   FDA records show that China isn’t even the leading source of contaminated imports to the United States. India and Mexico have exceeded China in “refused food shipments” over the past year, and the leader in rejected candy imports was a country with an otherwise antiseptic image: Denmark. Domestic food sources also aren’t exempt from scandal: Remember the California spinach scare last year? And last month, another Californiabased company recalled more than 75,000 pounds of hamburger distributed in the western United States, the latest in a lengthy series of tainted-meat incidents — all from American suppliers.
EASY TARGET
   But the media’s obsessive focus on China is an easy one — as easy as the old playground singsong slur that starts “Me Chinese, me make joke” and ends with a tainted Coke. Pointing the finger at Asian imports was the default PR strategy for U.S. auto manufacturers in the 1970s because it was easier to blame nameless foreigners than to address the industry’s real problems.
   Asian Americans have already seen the fruit that grows from such toxic soil: Twentyfive years ago last month, Vincent Chin, a young Chinese American man in Detroit, was killed by two disgruntled autoworkers who accused him of being part of a conspiracy to “take away American jobs” before beating him with a baseball bat. Bitter fruit indeed, and a dish we’d rather not see served up again.

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pork ribs from Wichita, Kan.-based Cargill Meat Solutions Corp. contained the leanness-enhancing feed additive ractopamine, the agency said.
   Frozen pig ears from Kansas City, Mo.-based Van Luin Foods USA Inc. were found to contain ractopamin, frozen chicken feet from Atlanta-based Intervision Foods was tainted with salmonella and frozen pork from Atlanta’s AJC International Inc. was tainted with ractopamine, the agency said.
   Both stewed chicken feet and pig ears are popular dishes in China.
   Sausage casing from a seventh company, listed by the Chinese agency as “Thumph Foods,” was also found to contain ractopamine, according to the Chinese agency. It was not clear whether it was referring to Triumph Foods of St. Joseph, Mo.

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Mexican cantaloupe irrigated with water from sewage-tainted rivers

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Chinese stocks rise to new record high  
  Associated Press
Thursday, July 26, 2007

SHANGHAI, China -- China's roller-coaster stock markets surged to a new high Thursday, boosted by expectations of stronger corporate profits despite government efforts to cool the sizzling economy.
  
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rose 22.49 points, or 0.52 percent, to close at 4,346.46, breaking its previous record set May 29. The Shenzhen Composite Index for the country's second, smaller market rose 1.5 percent to 1,231.65.

The Shanghai index has risen more than 62 percent so far this year and 14 percent since the start of July after more than doubling in 2006.

But the market has taken investors on a wild ride as regulators tried to rein in a boom that has drawn a flood of new money into stocks.

After the Shanghai index hit a then-record of 4,334.92 on May 29, the market plunged after regulators raised a trading tax the following day. The index fell 15 percent before climbing back up to the current level.

It also plunged in late February, only to bounce back within a few weeks.

Thousands of first-time Chinese investors have poured into the markets in recent months, tapping savings and mortgaging their homes to buy stocks in hopes of getting a better return in an economy that offers few other investment opportunities.

Investors have been upbeat about corporate earnings despite repeated government efforts to contain China's surging economy, which expanded by 11.9 percent last quarter, its fastest quarterly growth since 1995.

The government raised interest rates Friday for the fifth time since April 2006. It is trying to restrain the growth of exports and investment, worried that runaway spending in some industries could push up inflation or ignite a debt crisis.

"The government is waiting to see the outcome of those policies on the real economy as well as on the financial markets," said Grace Ng, a J.P. Morgan economist in Hong Kong.

Gainers on Thursday included China Southern Airlines, China's biggest carrier, which rose 0.8 percent. The airline said Wednesday it expects to post a profit for the first half, following a loss in the year-earlier period. China Southern's shares have risen more than 40 percent over the past seven trading sessions.

"Investors bought equities heavily after a number of companies issued rosy forecasts for their first-half earnings. But significant rises in stock prices have been eating up potential gains," said Zhang Yuheng, an analyst at CSC International Holdings.

Automaker Dongfeng Automobile Co. rose 5.5 percent while Citic Securities was up 5.1 percent.

Markets rallied despite a government decision to make keeping money in the bank more attractive by raising interest rates on deposits and cutting tax paid on them.

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China, Filling a Void, Drills for Riches in Chad


Chinese and Chadian workers at an oil site in southern Chad, part of China's growing economic presence in Africa.

By HOWARD W. FRENCH and LYDIA POLGREEN
Published: August 13, 2007

KOUDJIWAI, Chad — The small plane flew in low over a scorched, peppercorn scrubland, following a broad, muddy river that was all elbows on its run to the southeast.

The first hint of humanity came with the appearance of an immense grid for seismic testing, laboriously traced through the brush. Finally, a lonely, hulking steel drilling platform popped into view.

Chad is as geographically isolated as places come in Africa. It is also among the continent’s poorest and least stable countries, the scene of recurrent civil wars and foreign invasions since it gained independence from France in 1960.

None of that has put off the Chinese, though. In January, they bought the rights to a vast exploration zone that surrounds this rural village, making the baked wilderness here, without roads, electricity or telephones, the latest frontier for their thirsty oil industry and increasingly global ambitions.

The same is happening in one African country after another. In large oil-exporting countries like Angola and Nigeria, China is building or fixing railroads, and landing giant exploration contracts in Congo and Guinea.

In mineral-rich countries that had been all but abandoned by foreign investors because of unrest and corruption, Chinese companies are reviving output of cobalt and bauxite. China has even become the new mover and shaker in agricultural countries like Ivory Coast, once the crown jewel in France’s postcolonial African empire, where Chinese companies are building a new capital, in Yamoussoukro, paid for by Chinese loans.

Surging Chinese interest in this continent has helped bring about what many Africans believe is the most important moment since the end of the cold war, when democracy was spreading in Africa and Western nations spoke of a “peace dividend” that might ease African poverty.

That blush of interest in Africa quickly faded, though, as did several of the new democracies, and Africans and Westerners have regarded each other warily ever since. Westerners complain about chronic corruption and ineffective government, while Africans lament broken promises on aid and a hostile international economic system.

The Chinese have stepped into this picture, coming to struggling countries like Chad with deep pockets, fewer demands on how African governments should behave and an avowed faith in everyone’s ability to prosper.

As Beijing’s ambassador to this country, Wang Yingwu, said at his residence in Ndjamena, Chad’s capital, where the electricity repeatedly failed, “We are exempting Chadian goods from import duties.” When the interviewer noted that Chad produced almost nothing besides oil, Mr. Wang was undaunted, saying, “If they don’t produce things today, they will tomorrow.”

To help make that happen, China plans to build the country’s first oil refinery, lay new roads, provide irrigation and erect a mobile telephone network, for starters.

With such intensive efforts across the continent, China’s trade with Africa topped $55 billion in 2006, up from less than $10 million in the 1980s. To achieve this growth, it has bypassed multinational institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and flouted many of their lending criteria, including minimum standards of transparency, open bidding for contracts, environmental impact studies and assessments of overall debt and fiscal policies.

In some ways, the new Chinese model of doing business in Africa is a throwback to an earlier era of Western involvement that is now widely seen as disastrous. In that era, borrowing countries typically had to work with companies from the lending nation, limiting competition and giving priority to business over development. Today, China takes things even further, signing long-term deals for rights to natural resources that allow countries otherwise unworthy of credit to repay their debt in oil or mineral output.

“In what manner has Africa progressed, in what sector?” said the Chadian president, Idriss Déby, referring to decades of close ties to the West. “Whatever the good will of Africa’s old friends and the old partners in its development, it has not progressed at all.”

Still, major doubts hang heavily in the air. Will China’s hunger for raw materials enable this continent to take off? Or will Beijing’s willingness to spend whatever it needs in Africa, without regard to fiscal prudence, democracy, honest business practices and human rights, produce a replay of booms past, enriching local elites but leaving the continent poorer, its environment despoiled and its natural resources depleted?

A Test Case for China

There are few better places than Chad to watch for signs of how China’s African gambit will pay off. Chad ranks just four places from the bottom on the United Nations scale of human development, yet it is emerging as a critical piece in China’s economic push in a broad swath of sub-Saharan Africa, beginning with Sudan and extending in virtually every direction.

Despite advanced prospecting by French and other Western firms dating back to the 1970s, Chad’s oil had never been tapped. The nation was simply too unstable and the price of oil too low to justify investing much here. The oil that had been found was of low quality, and there was no practical way to get it out.

That changed in 2000, when the World Bank agreed to help finance a $4.2 billion, 665-mile pipeline connecting Chad to Cameroon on the condition that oil revenues be used to fight poverty.

Chad’s revenues quickly outstripped expectations, but have not gone into quelling its immense poverty. Mismanagement and fraud have beset the World Bank plan from the start.

Beyond that, Chadian rebels with bases in Sudan have been trying to depose Mr. Déby, so he pressed the World Bank to relax its rules on how to spend the country’s oil money. A compromise was reached, and he went on a military spending spree, buying guns, aircraft and armored vehicles for his troops, along with a fleet of armored Humvees that stop traffic as they zoom about Ndjamena’s dusty, potholed streets.

Seeking an even freer hand with the country’s oil bonanza, Mr. Déby’s government also hinted that it could find other partners willing to invest in Chad, especially with the price of oil so high.

Then, in 2006, Chad ended a relationship with Taiwan and recognized mainland China, and the floodgates opened. China bought the rights to several oil exploration zones in the country from a Canadian company and has gone from bit player to center stage in Chad’s affairs, confident that it can wring smart profits from the most inhospitable conditions.

“The Canadians and the Americans are only interested in really big finds,” said a veteran Western oil production engineer who works under contract here for the China National Petroleum Company, the C.N.P.C. “Anything else they think is not worth their time. The Chinese have a different approach. They are happy with the smaller finds, just lots of them. “They seem to have a different time frame, too,” the engineer added. “They plan to be here for a while.”

Indeed, the Chinese dream in this region consists of making finds here and there, using the World Bank financed pipeline to transport the oil and eventually building new pipelines to connect with a Chinese-built grid in Sudan.

This vision requires not only finding more oil, but establishing peace between Chad and Sudan. Darfur, the chaotic western Sudanese region where at least 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million been displaced in a government-backed counterinsurgency campaign, lies next to China’s exploration zones. Human rights groups maintain that Chinese weapons have played a major role in the carnage in Darfur.

Beijing’s recent diplomatic activity in the region may be explained by these Chinese oil interests as much as by American pressure on China to help stop the killing in Darfur.

“It used to be that when we had problems with our neighbor sending mercenaries to invade us that none of our complaints before the United Nations would pass, because China blocked them,” said President Déby. Since breaking relations with Taiwan and opening the door to Chinese investment, he added, “we have been able to raise our concerns without taboo.”

One topic that neither side was willing to say much about was the World Bank’s foundering efforts to ensure that petroleum revenues were well spent here. “I know the current pipeline is part of a project involving the World Bank and Esso,” said Dou Lirong, the general manager of C.N.P.C. International in Chad, calling the authority over revenues “a very complicated” matter. “I don’t know too much about it,” Mr. Dou continued, “but I’ve read a little bit on the Web.”

In fact, the very idea of the World Bank project is anathema to China’s deeply held noninterference policy, which has for decades governed China’s foreign policy and development. Underlying both is a kind of golden rule — China considers other countries meddling in its affairs unacceptable, and it assumes its friends feel the same way.

Cao Zhongming, deputy director of the Department of African Affairs, in the Chinese Foreign Ministry said: “China won’t interfere with Chad’s internal affairs. As a policy, that doesn’t change. If C.N.P.C., World Bank and Chad reach an agreement, it’s between them.” But, he added, if Chad does not accept the World Bank arrangement, “neither C.N.P.C. or the Chinese government would impose it.”

“The Chinese government,” he said, “won’t enforce something that Chad thinks interferes with their internal affairs.”

To China’s new African allies, this notion is a breath of fresh air. After years of hewing to the latest fads in international development doled out by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, Western donors and the United Nations, African governments have grown weary of the strings attached to foreign aid.

Thérèse Mekombe, vice chairwoman of the committee that monitors Chad’s oil money to make sure it is used properly, expressed surprise about the Chinese executive’s uncertainty about how oil revenues would be handled. Brandishing a copy of the law, she said all of the country’s oil earnings fell under the control of the World Bank arrangement. “The Chinese need to understand that they cannot arrive in a country and just impose their way of thinking,” Ms. Mekombe said.

A ‘Win-Win’ Business Plan

Chinese officials almost invariably describe their relationship with African countries as a win-win — based on mutual respect, aimed at joint prosperity and free of the overtones of exploitation and paternalism that critics worldwide say have governed much of the West’s postcolonial relationship with Africa.

China plans to build a petroleum refinery and a cement factory in Chad, both desperately needed in a landlocked country forced to import basic goods. Indeed, lowering gas and cement prices, which are among the highest in Africa, could do more to reduce poverty than the efforts of the World Bank and other donors combined, Mr. Dou suggested. “We can make a contribution to Chad,” he said.

Asked for an example of what win-win relationships look like, Mr. Dou offered what might seem an unlikely choice: Sudan. In its capital, Khartoum, he said, signs of China’s impact are everywhere.

“If you go to Sudan, you see paved roads,” he said. In the past, “the cars in Sudan had no turn signals, they point directions by hand. Now there are many good cars.”

Asked whether the oil money was really benefiting the Sudanese people, not just their rulers, Mr. Dou replied: “It is difficult for me to say. I am an engineer.”

To some critics, the answer is clear. “China’s no-strings-attached approach is problematic, particularly if its effect, if not its intent, is to undermine others’ efforts to change situations on the ground,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Often what is happening,” he added, “is underwriting of repression.”

Few Benefits for the People

Even with binding arrangements governing the use of oil revenues, Chad’s people have largely missed out.

In the Mayo-Kébbi region, where much of China’s feverish oil exploration is happening, the city