"China opens investigation into EU wine imports" by Keith Bradsher | New York Times, June 06, 2013
HONG KONG — China’s nouveaux riches millionaires, wealthy princelings, and bribe-giving business executives may soon find their wallets a little thinner: The price tag for French Champagnes and Burgundies, Italian Barolos and pinot grigios, and other European wines may soon rise in mainland Chinese stores.
Less than a day after the European Union said it was imposing preliminary import tariffs on Chinese solar panels, China’s Ministry of Commerce announced Wednesday that it had begun a trade investigation of wines imported from the European Union.
The investigation could lead to the imposition of steep tariffs by China on these wines.
The EU’s trade commissioner, Karel De Gucht, had announced Tuesday in Brussels that he was imposing preliminary tariffs of 11.8 percent on solar panels imported from China, saying the panels were being “dumped” in Europe at prices below what they cost to make.
If Beijing was trying to send a retaliatory signal to De Gucht personally, wine might be a good target: He owns a 50 percent stake in a wine-producing estate in the Tuscany region of Italy.
The Chinese commerce ministry carefully avoided linking the solar panels to Wednesday’s announcement that it would investigate European wines for improper duties or subsidies, saying instead that it was responding to a complaint from Chinese wineries....
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Related: May Day: Globe Sticks It to China
So much for the toast, 'eh?
"Solar-tariff showdown averted in Europe; But EU-China dispute still far from resolved" by James Kanter and Keith Bradsher | New York Times, June 05, 2013
BRUSSELS — The European Union’s trade chief on Tuesday carried out his threat to impose tariffs on solar panels from China. But in a concession to Chinese lobbying and after opposition from some European leaders and industry executives, he significantly watered down the penalties....
Oh, so the E.U. is going AGAINST the WILL of its PEOPLE, huh?
Premier Li Keqiang of China bypassed Karel De Gucht, the trade commissioner, during a visit to Germany last week and persuaded Chancellor Angela Merkel to call for further negotiations. China is a big export market for German products, and Merkel is not eager to see a trade war.
That should TELL YOU SOMETHING RIGHT THERE!
On Monday, Li went over De Gucht’s head with a phone conversation with the European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso. Li told Barroso China was ready to retaliate if the EU took action. The official Chinese news agency, said Li told Barroso “there would be no winners in a trade war.”
Solar panels represent more than 6 percent of China’s exports to the Continent. In 2011, Chinese exports of panels and components to the EU were worth $27.4 billion.
De Gucht suggested “massive overcapacity” in China led the Chinese to flood the European market. China is “producing today one and a half times the amount of solar panels the world needs,” he said.
Most EU governments opposed the preliminary tariffs. Under the rules, however, they faced significant obstacles to stopping De Gucht, who had backing of the European Commission, the executive branch.
I really cannot understand why ANYONE would want to join that POS DICTATORSHIP known as the EU.
Western governments contend Beijing has helped Chinese industries take over global markets with huge loans, government research programs, protection of the domestic Chinese market from imports, and industrial espionage.
Of course, when western governments do that it's okay.
China went from a bit player in solar panels as recently as 2006 to the dominant world producer.
See: Powering Up This Post About China
Looks like they are powering down to me.
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Also see: Slow Saturday Special: French Sheep Dip
Does that come with the entree?
"No need to squeal over Chinese move to buy US company" June 04, 2013
Harder to ignore are rotting pig carcasses floating in a Chinese river, the “lamb” meat that was actually rat, or China’s many other tainted-food scandals.
Related: Chinese Flu Reads Like Contagion Script
Now all but forgotten.
But America’s appetite for pork, meanwhile, has waned, so this deal is all upside — including new jobs — for US agribusiness. It especially means relief for American hog farmers and pork producers, who’ve been hard hit by rising grain prices in recent years. For the sake of Americans making a living off pigs, Congress should sign off on this boar-sized opportunity.
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Maybe you should try the chicken instead:
"Explosions, blaze kill 119 at poultry plant in China; Workers describe panic, chaos, blocked exits" by Chris Buckley | New York Times, June 04, 2013
HONG KONG — Explosions and fire tore through parts of a poultry plant in northeast China on Monday, killing at least 119 people in one of the country’s worst factory accidents in recent years.
Chinese news reports attributed many of the deaths at the factory, the Baoyuanfeng Poultry Plant, to blocked or inadequate exits that had hindered workers from escaping. The plant began operations four years ago and was considered a major domestic supplier.
Survivors described panic inside the burning plant, as employees unfamiliar with any fire escapes trampled and jostled each other through smoke and flames to reach exits that turned out to be locked.
“Inside and outside the workshop was glowing red,” one survivor, Wang Xiaoyun, told the China News Service.
The disaster came at a time of growing international concern over factory safety in Asia, punctuated by horrific accidents that have taken hundreds of lives. The worst was a collapse of a garment factory complex in Bangladesh on April 24 that killed more than 1,120.
Only concerned because the slave shop conditions were exposed by the accidents.
Related: Remember Bangladesh?
Also see: US retailers to forge new safety plan for Bangladeshi apparel factories
Safety efforts are hobbled in Bangladesh
And forgotten again.
Residents near the poultry factory in Jilin province heard blasts at about 6 a.m. Parts of the plant were engulfed in flames but it was unclear whether the fire broke out before or after the explosions, Chinese television reported....
By late in the day, Xinhua, the official news agency, said “people responsible” had been arrested over the disaster but did not identify them. The precise cause of the fire and explosions also remained unclear.
“When I woke up, there was smoke rising in the air and sirens and you knew straight away that it was bad news,” Dong Wenjun, a metal trader in the town of Mishazi, where the plant is located, said in a telephone interview. “But I didn’t expect it to be this bad. They were all local people, I think.”
Television news showed rescuers picking their way through the blackened remnants of the plant.
The police evacuated residents near the plant, fearing more explosions from gas stored there, the China News Service reported....
??????????
China’s food-processing industry has grown rapidly in recent years to feed an increasingly prosperous and urbanized population and the poultry plant appeared to be one beneficiary of that growth.
The factory went into operation in 2009 and boasted of sales nationwide.
Dehui City, which administers the area that includes the poultry plant, has promoted itself as a base for commercial agriculture, animal feed and food processing.
By 2011, Dehui’s poultry industry could produce 250 million broiler chickens a year and slaughter 150 million of them, according to information on the Jilin government’s website.
Jilin Baoyuanfeng Poultry, which owns the Mishazi plant, has more than 1,200 employees, the China News Service said. The company can produce 67,000 tons of chicken products every year, the Agriculture Ministry said on its website in 2010.
China’s rapid economic expansion has brought with it factories and mines troubled by work hazards, and frequent industrial accidents have drawn criticism that officials put economic growth before safety.
It's the same in AmeriKa or any other place!
In an apparent reflection of such sensitivities, China’s premier, Li Keqiang, and president, Xi Jinping, who is traveling abroad, both promptly issued orders about the latest disaster. Xi told officials to “get to the bottom of the causes of this accident, pursue culpability according to the law, sum up the profound lessons, and adopt effective measures to resolutely prevent major accidents from occurring,” Xinhua reported.
All governments sound the same in the aftermath of "accidents."
The government does not issue detailed figures for industrial accidents but has said safety is improving....
China’s coal mines are notoriously unsafe. But Geoffrey Crothall, the communications director for China Labour Bulletin, an advocacy group based in Hong Kong, said he could not recall the last time there was a disaster of this magnitude in a factory or production plant.
In 1993, a fire in a toy factory in far southern China killed 87 workers, he said. In late 2000, a fire at a shopping center in Luoyang in Henan province in central China killed 309 people.
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"Factory where 120 died had been lauded in China; System emphasizes expansion, not workplace safety" by Edward Wong | New York Times, June 05, 2013
BEIJING — A local Communist Party official called it an “inspiring” factory three years ago. Local officials later gave it the “leading enterprise” label for its innovation in processing chickens. But the official homages to the Jilin Baoyuanfeng Poultry Plant, where at least 120 people perished this week in a fast-moving fire, now serve as little more than stark reminders of the dangerous conditions facing many workers in China.
And AmeriKa sends her factories there.
The factory fire, which officials attributed to an ammonia gas leak, was China’s worst workplace fire in many years, according to state media.
What is AMMONIA doing at a CHICKEN PLANT?
It underscored how government regulation in China is weakened by a system that bases the promotion of local officials on economic growth above all else. How well companies expand the local economy trumps workplace conditions, product safety, and pollution — top concerns for many Chinese and growing sources of unrest.
Yeah, HELLO, AmeriKa!!!!
On Tuesday, some relatives and friends of victims briefly took to the streets of Dehui, the factory’s municipality in northeast China, to demand justice, prompting the police to fan out around the area, wire services reported.
Oh, really? I was told PROTESTS were BANNED in CHINA (keep reading).
It was clear that the tragedy worried Chinese leaders, as Prime Minister Li Keqiang met with provincial officials at the emergency command center of the State Council, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Accounts in the media from a handful of survivors painted a picture of mad attempts to escape an inferno consuming a warren of rooms and hallways....
The previous official statements of support for the company, including recognition as a “top 100” agricultural firm in Jilin Province, are typical of the symbiotic ties between Communist Party officials and the businesses they regulate.
It's the SAME in AmeriKa!!!! All the regulators are usually FROM the INDUSTRY they regulate!
I'll tell you, readers, I am FULL UP on POT-HOLLERING-KETTLE CRAP MEDIA!!!
Such close working relationships have been key to China’s successful transition from a socialist planned economy, but have also made industrial accidents, labor abuses, and environmental hazards common.
The pattern of officials’ turning a blind eye to safety problems at businesses they support can be found throughout China.
And AmeriKa!
Officials in the city have avoided granting interviews, but some details of conditions at the factory began to emerge in state media. Xinhua reported that Changchun officials had concluded that working conditions were too crowded, fire escape routes and procedures poor, and inspections substandard. Much of the factory had been built from flammable materials, so “the risk of fire was very large,” Xinhua reported.
Medical workers at the site found that a main cause of death was ammonia poisoning, Xinhua reported Tuesday....
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What the hell is AMMONIA doing in a chicken factory?
Related: Alphabet Agency: USDA Dinner
Boston Globe Supper Will Make You Sick
Yeah, washing food in ammonia will do that to you.
"Locked factory doors emerge as issue after fire in China" by Edward Wong | New York Times, June 06, 2013
BEIJING — The fire and ammonia gas leak at a poultry factory that killed at least 120 people and injured scores of others this week has stirred outrage and debate in China over workplace safety issues.
One sharp question being asked by a wide range of critics on the Internet and in the state news media is why many of the doors were locked at the factory....
There have been previous instances of locked factory doors being revealed as hazards in China, but the phenomenon persists. Advocates of fair labor practices say it is one way managers prevent workers from leaving, and at least one survivor from the fire has said online that veteran workers there told her managers had locked factory doors to prevent theft.
On Wednesday, Beijing Evening News ran a scathing commentary under the headline “How Many Emergency Exits Are Intentionally Blocked?”
Xinhua, the state news agency, ran a report Tuesday in which a survivor said that it was normal for doors to be locked at the poultry plant during regular factory shifts.
The Communist Party committee in Jilin Province, where the factory is located, ordered a provincewide inspection of such workplaces to ensure all fire exits are kept open, the article said.
But this fire and previous reports of work safety violations show that regulatory actions by officials often fall short in China.
Related: China's Leadership Change
I hope you can see why I'm really no longer enthusiastic about my pot-hollering-kettle crap media.
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Look, I'm not saying Chinese should suffer in sweatshops, either. What I am pointing out is the blatant hypocrisy coming from the AmeriKan media, as well as the fact that all governments are shit.
Also see: Fowl play suspected in Southborough chicken theft
I'll bet it was the Chinese.
"Thousands mark Tiananmen Square crackdown" by Gerry Mullany | New York Times, June 05, 2013
HONG KONG — Tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents, joined by a smattering of mainland Chinese, converged in central Victoria Park Tuesday to mark the 24th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown and vent anger at a Chinese leadership that has signaled its intent to broaden limited control over the territory.
Speakers shouted “down with the Communist Party” and “free elections for all citizens.”
Such protests are effectively banned in mainland China, creating a draw for mainlanders....
Are they?
Related: China Protests
Sunday Globe Special: Chinese Successfully Protest Pollution
For being banned they sure have a lot of them.
A 17-year-old student named Zheng from Guangdong Province was among several holding a flag of the Republic of China, whose leaders fled to Taiwan as the Communists took over the mainland in 1949. Wan Yun, 47, a Hong Kong resident from Hubei Province, laid out documents for a land dispute that she said had brought her a year in a labor camp.
After the rally was well underway, an intense, wind-whipped rainstorm descended, sending protesters scurrying for cover through flooded streets. But the rain abated a half-hour later, and the drenched throngs returned.
I love it when God weighs in with his opinion.
The annual demonstration is the most vivid display of the continuing passions over the 1989 crackdown on student protests in Beijing, an event whose name and date has been stricken by censors on mainland China. Armed soldiers and armored vehicles swept through Beijing, shooting dead — by most estimates — hundreds of people to end two months of protests, hunger strikes, and passionate speeches at Tiananmen Square....
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Oh, another NYT piece of shit.
I have a lot more leftovers from China to get to, but I'm full right now.
