Former dairy boss tried over China tainted milk scandal

SHIJIAZHUANG, China (AFP) — The former boss of the dairy firm at the heart of China’s tainted milk scandal stood trial here Wednesday over a trail of death and sickness that pushed Chinese products off shelves worldwide.

A small but vocal group of protesters gathered outside the court in this northern Chinese city, calling for justice after milk laced with an industrial chemical killed six babies and left 294,000 with kidney and urinary troubles.

“They should execute them all,” shouted Hua Lian, a 45-year-old woman who described herself as a milk consumer, as roughly half-a-dozen relatives of sick children held up signs calling for justice.

“They have to deal with these people harshly. Otherwise people will never learn.”

But lawyers monitoring the case for the families said the legal process had been flawed and that there was little chance of justice for the victims.

Bangladesh stunned by Awami victory

Bangladesh is set for a government with the biggest parliamentary majority since 1973, following Monday’s general elections designed to bring an end to two years of military-backed rule.

In an election marked by high turnout and few incidents, the centre-left Awami League – headed by former prime minister Sheikh Hasina – and its allies pulled off a stunning victory, winning a two-thirds majority in the single-chamber national assembly.

The Mohajot (Grand Coalition) alliance practically demolished its rivals, the centre-right Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its Islamist ally the Jamaat-e-Islami. All top leaders of the Jamaat lost their seats.

The sheer scale of the Awami League’s victory has left people searching for an explanation. Even the party’s leaders appear to be taking a pause for thought.

China toughens school quake standards: state media

SHANGHAI (AFP) — China has toughened construction standards for schools after the May earthquake in southwest China damaged nearly 14,000 schools and killed an untold number of students, state media reported Sunday.

The National People’s Congress also passed ammendments calling for a national earthquake emergency rescue team and penalties for anyone who hides information about quake damage, the Southern Daily newspaper reported.

The revisions are a response to the 8.0-magnitude earthquake May 12 that left nearly 88,000 people dead or missing, injured 375,000 and made more than five million homeless.

The new laws passed late Saturday require that all schools meet higher quake-proof standards than other buildings in the same area, the newspaper reported. Existing schools will need to be renovated and reinforced.

6 Chinese go on trial for selling melamine

BEIJING (AP) — Six Chinese suspects went on trial Friday accused of making and selling the industrial chemical at the center of a tainted milk scandal blamed for killing six children and sickening nearly 300,000 others.

Among those in court Friday was the owner of a workshop that was allegedly the country’s largest source of melamine, the substance responsible for the health crisis that also saw Chinese food products pulled from stores worldwide, state media said.

Police say Zhang Yujun, 40, ran a workshop on the outskirts of Jinan in eastern Shandong province that manufactured and sold a “protein powder” composed mainly of melamine and malt dextrin, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The powder was added to watered-down milk to make it appear higher in protein content.

Prosecutors in the Shijiazhuang Intermediate People’s Court accused Zhang of producing 776 tons of the additive powder from October 2007 through August 2008, making it the largest source of melamine in the country. He allegedly sold more than 600 tons with a total value of 6.83 million yuan ($1 million), the court heard.

Thai leader proposes $8.7 bln stimulus package

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — Thailand’s prime minister said Friday the government wants to spend 300 billion baht ($8.7 billion) next year to jump-start the country’s ailing economy.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said the economic stimulus package would include increased lending from government banks for agriculture projects and direct lending to local governments for infrastructure projects.

The plan must first be approved by Parliament, where Abhisit’s coalition has a slim majority.

“The plan will be announced in January and the budget needs to be approved by the parliament first and it is expected that the money could be injected (into the economy) from March or April,” Abhisit told reporters.

The Thai government is desperate to help the country’s ailing economy which the Fiscal Policy Office projected this week could grow by only 1 percent next year. It attributed the weak growth next year a drop in domestic consumption and damage to the export sector from the worsening global economy.

Japan factory output has biggest fall on record

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s contracting economy got a slew of bad news Friday when government figures showed that industrial production plunged by its biggest margin on record in November, the jobless rate jumped and household spending fell.

Output at the nation’s manufacturers tumbled 8.1 percent from October, the largest drop since Tokyo began measuring such data in 1953, as Japan’s automakers and others slashed production to cope with slowing global demand. A government survey predicted further declines of 8 percent in December and 2.1 percent in January.

“Exports and industrial production are falling so extraordinarily quickly that it almost defies analysis,” said Richard Jerram, chief economist at Macquarie Securities in Tokyo.

The drop in factory production is nearly double the previous biggest decline of 4.3 percent in January 2001, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Earlier this week, trade data showed that exports plunged a record 26.7 percent in November.

Tourists, locals pray in Bethlehem on Christmas

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — Bethlehem marked Christmas on Thursday with crowds of tourists joining local Palestinian Christians in Jesus’ traditional birthplace, as the West Bank town basked in its once-a-year appearance in the world spotlight.

The mood was upbeat, with hotel rooms fully booked and merchants reporting good business for the first time in years, as a long period of Israeli-Palestinian violence that dampened moods and tourism seemed to be easing.

Light rain fell on Bethlehem on Christmas morning. Crowds of worshippers and tourists carrying umbrellas walked briskly across the plaza in front of the Church of the Nativity, built atop the grotto where Jesus is believed to have been born.

Inside the dimly lit Crusader-era church, hundreds of people lined up five abreast between two rows of columns on one side, quietly waiting their turn to descend a few stone steps to the grotto.

Vietnam imposes new blogging restrictions

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam has approved new regulations banning bloggers from discussing subjects the government deems sensitive or inappropriate and requiring them to limit their writings to personal issues.

The rules ban any posts that undermine national security, incite violence or crime, disclose state secrets, or include inaccurate information that could damage the reputation of individuals and organizations, according to a copy of the regulations obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

The rules, which were approved Dec. 18, attempt to rein in Vietnam’s booming blogosphere. It has become an alternative source of news for many in the communist country, where the media is state-controlled.

The new rules require Internet companies that provide blogging platforms to report to the government every six months and provide information about bloggers on request.

Beijing to build a Chinese Broadway

BEIJING — Beijing will build a complex of 32 theatres dedicated to putting on musicals, state media said on Tuesday, calling it the country’s answer to Broadway.

The complex, in Beijing’s northwestern suburb of Haidian, will start being built at the end of next year and take five years to complete, the official Beijing Daily said.

The main theatre will seat 2,000 people and others will seat between 300 and 500 people, it added.

The complex will become “a Chinese Broadway base for composers, writers, performers and actors in training,” Xinhua news agency quoted a spokesman for the developer as saying.

The theatres aim to stage more than 100 musicals, the report said, including Aida and The Lion King, although it did not provide a time frame.

China cracks down on confessional talk shows

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s broadcasting watchdog has ordered a crackdown on low-brow confessional talk shows as part of a campaign against base entertainment and because such programs often fake their content, media said on Wednesday. China has seen a plethora of these television shows, mainly on regional stations, with names like “Real Love,” “Here Comes the Litigant” and “Say It Like It Is,” where people come on to talk about family disputes or appeal for money.

But many of them have resorted to faking their content to get higher ratings, the Xian Evening News said, in a report carried on popular Chinese web portal Sina.com.

“Sometimes we cannot but make up stories in order to get viewers’ eyeballs, and we hire actors to do it,” the newspaper quoted an unnamed television executive as saying.

The report said the crackdown was also part of a government campaign to take vulgar programs off the air.