No quick-fix for China's troubled dairy industry

By JOE McDONALD 2010-10-22T11:24:33Z BEIJING (AP) -- Rumors on the Web that a major Chinese dairy company's baby formula might harm infants played on the worst fears of jittery parents after a string of scandals over tainted milk....

For border officials in Hong Kong, baby formula trumps heroin. Since the former British colony on March 1 restricted outbound travelers to two 2-pound cans each, a syndicate has been cracked and more people have been arrested for smuggling milk powder than were detained all of last year for carrying heroin.

BEIJING (AP) -- China announced a complete overhaul of its dairy industry Thursday to improve safety at every step - from cow breeding to milk sales - saying its worst food quality scandal in years had revealed "major problems" in quality control....

China Mengniu Dairy, China's largest dairy company by sales, said it destroyed milk products found to be contaminated with carcinogens, in the latest scare for the country's scandal-hit industry.

BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Global food and dair

Two men were executed in China on Tuesday for their roles in a contaminated milk powder scandal that led to the deaths of at least six infants and sickened up to 300,000, state media said.The men had been sentenced to death earlier this year by a court in the northern city of Shijiazhuang for producing and selling toxic ingredients that ended up in the infant milk powder, Xinhua news agency said.Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping were put to death following execution orders issued by China's high court and after their appeals were turned down in March, Xinhua said.

China announced a complete overhaul of its dairy industry Thursday to improve safety at every step -- from cow breeding to milk sales -- saying its worst food quality scandal in years had revealed "major problems" in quality control.

Thousands of dead pigs in a Shanghai river have cast a spotlight on China's poorly regulated farm production, with the country's favourite meat joining a long list of food scares. As of Friday, the number of carcasses recovered in recent days from the Huangpu river -- which cuts through the commercial hub and supplies over 20 percent of its drinking water -- had reached more than 7,500.