Tuesday, September 30, 2008

PRISONERS OF WAR

Below is an interesting discussion taking place on the web site of the Campaign for America's Future.


PRISONERS OF WAR

Campaign for America’s Future

STAFF
By Robert Borosage
September 30th, 2008 - 10:27am ET

OurFuture.org Staff

September 30, 2008

On September 29, Congress revolted against the $700 billion price tag of the proposed bailout of Wall Street. The day before, that same Congress passed without murmur—unanimously in the Senate—a $700 billion budget for the Pentagon in 2009. The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression has shattered the conservative illusions about deregulation and market fundamentalism. But the equally costly illusions about America’s role as an “indispensable nation” policing the globe go without challenge. We remain prisoners of war.

Most Americans have no sense of the cost and scope of America’s role as globocop. We sustain what Chalmers Johnson calls an “empire of bases” across the globe – over 700 active bases in more than 30 countries. Our navy polices the world’s oceans. We task our military to maintain “dominance” not only in our own hemisphere, but in Europe, the Persian Gulf and Asia. Our intelligence “plumbing in place” engages in covert activities throughout the globe. We are the only nation with the capacity to airlift expeditionary forces rapidly and in large numbers across the globe. We are now devoting some $12 billion a month to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

President Bush has declared a “Global War on Terror,” a so-called “long war,” without limits or exits. Our Defense Secretary complains that the military is displacing the desiccated State Department as America’s representatives across the world.

The cost of sustaining this commitment is staggering. The Pentagon’s budget itself represents more than half of all discretionary spending—everything the government does, outside of entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, and interest on the national debt. At $700 billion, it is about equal to that spent by the rest of the world combined on the military. But the actual cost of our military is strewn throughout the budget. Add in the cost of our veterans, the arms aid in the State Department budget, Homeland Security, and more—and actual spending climbs over $1 trillion a year.

Our military has no rival, but we grow ever less secure. There are three fundamental reasons for this.

As carpenters know, if you only carry a hammer, lots of things start looking like a nail. Maintain a global military constantly engaged across the world, and it will find things to do. As one conservative Southern Senator once said, “the greater ability we have to go places and do things, the more likely we are to go there and do them.” Neo-conservatives dream of the military remaking the Middle East. Humanitarians demand that it act to stop genocide or atrocities from Rwanda to Darfur. Global corporations insist that it challenge pirates and rogue states that are posing an increasing nuisance to shipping.

Thus, the fanatics that launched the airplanes against the World Trade Towers are turned into warriors; the very real threat they pose transformed into a Global War on Terror. This not only helps justify the “war of choice” against Iraq, surely the most costly national security debacle since Vietnam. It also distracts us from a sensible strategy against al Qaeda and its allies. As http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2007/RAND_OP168.pdf “>the Pentagon’s own think tank, the Rand Corporation concluded in a recent study, the very concept of a “war on terror” isn’t only a distraction; it is detraction from a sensible strategy. By elevating al Qaeda into global warriors, it inflates their importance, and aids their ability to recruit. At the same time, it scorns the real measures needed to counter al Qaeda—intelligence cooperation, financial constraints, and alert and aggressive policing. Worse, it undermines the broad challenge that must be made to engage Islam, to rally the forces of moderation, and to isolate the extremists.

The second problem is the obverse: things that don’t look like nails get ignored. America’s priorities are badly distorted. Abroad, as Defense Secretary Gates acknowledged, generals and admirals displace our diplomats. Arms sales dominate our foreign assistance programs. At home, our country is literally falling apart from lack of investment in a modern, energy efficient infrastructure. We spend tens of billions each year to project our military power into the Persian Gulf, but fail to invest in the renewable energy and conservation at home that could reduce our dependence on foreign oil, generate jobs here in the U.S., and help capture the green markets that will be the growth markets of the future. We are a wealthy country, so in fact, we probably could afford to sustain military spending at current levels. But we can’t do so, and slash taxes on the wealthy and the corporations, without starving basic investments here at home, even as we rack up record deficits.

Worse, the military has no answer to the major threats to our security: a growing global indebtedness that can’t be sustained, the rise of India and China as economic powerhouses, catastrophic climate change and the growing resource struggles that will be far more destabilizing than Islamic terrorists, an integrated global economy of ever greater instability. Worse, the attention devoted to military misadventures like Iraq gets in the way of addressing these looming threats.

The third problem is the contrast between the Republic we are trying to secure and the national security state that has been built to police the globe. War augments the power of the executive. War and military threat justify secrecy, covert operations, disdain for constitutional limits and checks and balances. President Bush claims the right to launch preventive war on any nation in the world, to wiretap Americans without warrant, to designate them an enemy combatant and arrest them without reasonable cause, to hold them without review. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, rendition and torture have shamed America during the Bush years. But the lawlessness of the national security state – and the trampling of our own liberties in the name of security – did not begin in 2000. Bush has merely taken to the extreme prerogatives claimed by presidents over the last decades.

But the myths that sustain our military—and the lobbies that promote military spending—are politically unassailable. Both major party presidential candidates pledge to increase the size of the military and project higher military spending in the future. Both support an increased military occupation in Afghanistan, ignoring the history of fierce Afghani resistance to foreign occupation that confounded Britain at the height of its empire, and the Soviet Union right off its borders. The financial crisis and coming recession is forcing a great reckoning in America. But to date, there is no serious challenge to our priorities, or to America’s commitment to policing the globe. The presidential debate on foreign policy featured disputes about Iraq, about Georgia, about Afghanistan, about the economic crisis. But our basic global strategy, our spending priorities went without question or comment.

Economic crisis, like hanging, has a way of concentrating the mind. The financial crisis and the harsh recession likely to follow will spark a fundamental debate about America’s economy. But the debacle in Iraq has not had the same effect on the foreign policy debate. A challenge to America’s global strategy will not come from Washington. It won’t come from the national security managers of either party. It can only come if citizens build a democratic movement willing and able to demand the debate that we need.



Join the discussion below





Militarism and the economy

By Alan Maki | September 30th, 2008 - 2:54pm GMT

The presidential "race" is a one-sided fiasco... Barack Obama is the "chosen one" by the military-financial-industrial complex of Wall Street coupon clippers.

Obama has of late been showing his true allegiances to Wall Street--- even disregarding the fact that Warren Buffett and Goldman-Sachs are his best "bundlers"--- Obama simultaneously calls for increasing military expenditures and "belt-tightening." Obama has done all but call for reinstatement of the draft which won't endear him to his young constituency who will be marching off to war rather than going to college.

You talk about a recession. Capitalism is going to fall, and this baby is going to fall hard. It is going to come crashing down in the worst economic depression in human history... the writing is clearly on the wall.

You seem eager to offer advice on saving this rotten system which has brought humanity so much misery.

Rather than worrying about saving this system we should only be worried about bringing about the needed reforms to help working people sustain and main their livelihoods and the best standard of living as capitalism leaves the stage.

There is no way to have "guns and butter" as they say.

You and John Sweeney along with other progressives signed a statement concerning this crisis... now, what resources are you going to make available for working people to launch the necessary struggles where they work and in the communities where they live to fight for the reforms you outline?

John Sweeney has stated on numerous occasions his intent is to save capitalism... it makes little sense to try to save a system in which these kinds of economic crisis are an inherent and inseparable part of the system where these kinds of problems, and worse, are only going to be replicated time and time again.

Our message to the Wall Street coupon clippers should be: Take care of your own mess, it is your system not ours; you and the generals should go hold baked-good sales to finance the solution to problems of your own making.

The centers of finance want to use socialism to bail them out of their problems; well, what is good for the goose, is good for the gander. As long as it is now widely recognized that socialism is the only solution to problems, it is time to demand socialized health care as an immediate reform--- this will be good for the health of all people and it will free up trillions of dollars to begin building a people centered green, peaceful, cooperative socialist economy as an alternative to this profit driven, dog-eat-dog, war and poverty economy of capitalism.

I would suggest that you add socialism to your otherwise very good list of needed reforms which will help working people through this mess.

Add in socialized heath care together with your call for moratoriums on foreclosures/evictions and restructuring the mortgages and this will free up enormous resources and funds for all the social programs we need.

I like your idea about insisting on tax-payers getting equity in any bailout too--- what tax-payers finance, tax-payers should own. Getting equity and ownership in industries and mines, mills and factories should be seen as part of the process of socialization which needs to take place... this is a good place to start.

People can get along just fine without Wall Street.

My question remains, what resources is the Campaign for America's Future, the AFL-CIO, Change To Win and these other organizations willing to make available to create the kind of organized rank and file/grassroots upsurge that it will take to win these kinds of reforms? Certainly your organizations should be able to pony up at least as much as is being pumped into supporting Barack Obama... let Warren Buffett and Goldman Sachs take care of funding their own candidate... we need to prepare to do battle with the Obama Administration.

If I were you, I would put a lot more emphasis on ending these dirty oil wars and the need to cut military spending while transferring this wealth towards social programs.

Pumping all this money into war and militarism is like taking money from your billfold and tossing it into the ocean. Those bankers, financiers and Wall Street coupon clippers reaped massive profits from militarism are the same ones who now cry to tax-payers for help; they ironically created a big part of their own mess largely because they fed like pigs at the trough of militarization.

You might want to consider forgiveness of all student loans, too... this would have the effect of getting billions of dollars back into the economy. Maybe suggest that these student loans be paid back at fifty-cents on the dollar without interest into some kind of "green economic development fund."

Here is what you called for. These aren't the kind of demands a group of thirty-five people just sign their names to and mail to Congress expecting a bunch of millionaires working for billionaires to implement; these are fighting words requiring a real struggle if you are serious about winning such reforms:

We urge the Congress to insist on some basic conditions
for any bailout.

1. Public Oversight. This kind of power can never be
centralized in a single individual - much less one who
did not even stand for election. Any funds must be
controlled by an independent entity, with consumers and
workers given seats on its board. Congress should be
empowered to name independent monitors and to approve
all board members.

2. Protect the Taxpayer. The Treasury bill would have
taxpayers buying paper that nobody else wants at prices
far above its current value. If a firm wants to auction
off its toxic paper to the US Government, taxpayers
should get equity in that firm equal to any amount paid
in excess of the paper's value. This will deter
profitable firms from using the government as a dumpster
for their toxic paper. And it will insure that if the
bailout works and the firms become profitable,
taxpayers, not simply bankers, benefit from the upside.

3. Curb the casino. This crisis was caused because
sensible regulations of the banking system that worked
for dozens of years were dismantled or went unenforced.
No bailout can go forward without requiring the
necessary regulation to insure this does not happen
again. Any institution, which receives assistance,
should agree to come under a microscope going forward in
terms of disclosure requirements, and it should have
stringent capital requirement imposed upon it.

4. Invest in the real economy. Ending the bankers strike
is not sufficient enough to avoid the recession into
which we have been driven. Major public investment in
new energy and conservation, rebuilding schools and
infrastructure, extending unemployment and food stamps,
helping states avoid crippling cuts in police and health
services - is vital to get the real economy moving and
put people back to work. No bailout should proceed
without being linked to support for a major public
investment plan to get the economy going.

5. Hold CEOs and Boards of Directors Accountable. Wall
Street CEOs shouldn't be pocketing millions while
taxpayers are forced to bail them out. Any firm that
applies for relief must agree to cancel all stock option
programs and CEOs should have stringent limits placed on
their compensation until the Company has repaid all
taxpayer assistance.

6. Aid the victims, not just the predators. Both bankers
and home owners made foolish bets that home prices would
keep rising. Many homeowners, however, were misled by
predatory lenders into taking mortgages that they didn't
understand and couldn't afford. It would be simply
obscene to help the predators and not those that they
preyed upon. No bail out of the banks should take place
without measures to help people in trouble stay in their
homes. Explicit provisions should ensure use of the full
array of financial and legal tools available to the
government to stop foreclosures and restructure home
mortgage loans for ordinary Americans, including
amending the bankruptcy code to allow judges to modify
mortgages. Where workouts are not feasible, people
should be allowed to stay in their homes as renters.

 Robert Borosage, co-director, Campaign for America's Future

 John Sweeney, president, AFL-CIO


 Andy Stern, president, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)

 Gerald McEntee, president, Am. Fed. of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)

 Randi Weingarten, president, American Federation of Teachers (AFT)

 Larry Cohen, president, Communications Workers of America (CWA)

 Dennis Van Roekel, president, National Education Association (NEA)

 Leo Gerard, president, United Steelworkers (USW)

 Maude Hurd, national president, ACORN

 Nan Aron, president, Alliance for Justice

 Amy Issacs, national director, Americans for Democratic Action

 Kevin Zeese, executive director, Campaign for Fresh Air & Clean Politics

 John Podesta, president, Center for American Progress Action Fund

 Deepak Bhargava, president, Center for Community Change

 Deborah Weinstein, executive director, Coalition for Human Needs

 Donald Mathis, president, Community Action Partnership

 Jane Hamsher, firedoglake.com

 James D. Weill, president, Food Research & Action Center (FRAC)

 Brent Blackwelder, president, Friends of the Earth

 John Cavanagh, director, Institute for Policy Studies

 Sarita Gupta, executive director, Jobs with Justice

 Wade Henderson, president, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights

 Carissa Picard, esq., president, Military Spouses for Change

 Sally Greenberg, executive director, National Consumers League

 Christine L. Owens, executive director, National Employment Law Project

 Gary Bass, executive director, OMB Watch

 Adam Lioz, program director, Progressive Future

 Joanne Carter, executive director, RESULTS

 William McNary, president, USAction

 Paula Brantner, executive director, Workplace Fairness

 Dan Cantor, executive director, Working Families Party

 Mark Lotwis, executive director, 21st Century Democrats


Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Phone: 218-386-2432

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net


P.S.--- I have written my Blue Dog Congressman Collin Petersen and my Senator, Amy "Republican Lite" Klobuchar telling them I have added my name to this impressive list of endorsers along with the demand for socialized health care and raising the minimum wage to a real living wage and raising Social Security payments because the more wealth we can pry away from the bankers and Wall Street coupon clippers and put into the pockets of working people who will spend, spend, spend, the better things will be all the way around... the quicker this can be done the better; plus the less money Democrats will have to spend trying to fix this mess :)


Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Check out my blog:

Thoughts From Podunk

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Support the Windsor University Faculty Association

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Support the Windsor University Faculty Association

We support the Windsor University Faculty Association in their quest for justice and human dignity as they struggle, not only to defend the own rights and livelihood, but workers everywhere who struggle for justice and dignity.

Just across the border in Michigan, adjuncts employed by Northern Michigan University have no rights, are paid sub-poverty salaries, have no health care, no child care and have not had a raise in years in spite of escalating food and gas prices and huge debts incurred in obtaining their own educations with pitifully little in the way of receiving upgrading in their teaching skills. The WUFA, in struggling for their own rights against a very anti-labour Administration/Management sets an example for those employed in universities like Northern Michigan University and universities everywhere.

As workers employed in the Indian Gaming Industry who are forced to work in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without ANY rights under state or federal labor laws--- where these corrupt managements completely ignore even the most basic international labor laws--- we are especially appreciative of the WUFA setting a stellar and exemplary example of how to struggle for the rights of labour.

We support a quick negotiated settlement with the Windsor University Faculty Association [WUFA] and we urge you to get back to the negotiation table. The University of Windsor works because WUFA does; we teach, research and counsel. Faculty, sessionals, and librarians are the hearts and minds of the University of Windsor.

We urge you to drop your demands for concessions on wages, benefits, working conditions, and promotion, tenure, and renewal, and offer WUFA members a fair and equitable contract that embodies the principal of sector parity, that embraces employment equity, and that preserves the quality of education at the university. we urge you to end this strike, which hurts your students, your members, and the reputation of the University of Windsor.

We urge working people everywhere to support the struggle for justice and dignity being waged by the Windsor University Faculty Association by clicking onto the CUPE web site and signing on to a statement of solidarity condemning the shameful actions of the Administration of the University of Windsor in trying to weaken the Windsor University Faculty Association.

Click on to the CUPE web site to show your support for the Windsor University Faculty Association in their struggle for justice:

http://cupe.ca/action/cupe-supports-wufa

In addition to the struggle of the WUFA, we appreciate the Canadian Union of Public Employees bringing this struggle to our attention with a request for solidarity,

Yours in the struggle,

Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

58891 CR 13
Warroad, Minnesota USA 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell Phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Blog: http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/


CUPE supports Windsor faculty

The Faculty at the University of Windsor is now entering its second week of strike.

In the hope of helping WUFA get a fair deal, Paul Moist offered CUPE’s support to WUFA’s bargaining team. “We offered them our support dealing with their strike campaign and we had a very positive relation with the committee, said Moist. I hope they can benefit from CUPE’s vast experience in the post-secondary sector. This is a perfect example of public sector workers who need our support in these crucial times.”

On campus, CUPE locals 1001, 1393, 4580 and 1281 are coalition partners, working closely with WUFA.

WUFA president, Professor Brian E. Brown said “Too much misinformation has been released by the university giving an entirely unjust view of the situation. The truth is that 47% of our Faculty are part time staff. They are underpaid, overworked and increasingly treated as casual labour. We can’t attract and keep the best new faculty with uncompetitive salaries and poor working conditions. Pay equity and employment equity imbalances are important issues that have to be addressed.”

Brown also noted both the Graduate Student Society and the University of Windsor Students' Alliance have voted to support WUFA. "Too much is at risk at this institution. Students and faculty have united to preserve quality education at the University of Windsor."

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Chinese dairy knew milk fault weeks before recall

This opinion piece needs no introduction. The Iron Range Club of the Communist Party USA believes this opinion piece by Alan Maki is written in the best traditions of the "red" Finns of the Iron Range and working class journalism in advocating for a better world.

The Iron Range Club of the Communist Party USA urges Communist Party Clubs everywhere to discuss and circulate this opinion piece far and wide.



Saturday, September 13, 2008

Chinese dairy knew milk fault weeks before recall

Does anyone really believe, that the "market economy" and capitalist thinking introduced and pushed by deviant and corrupt Chinese leaders whose perverted world outlook has been shaped by backroom payoffs in the same manner as received by any American politicians from the Wall Street coupon clippers working in league with the likes of capitalist sooth-sayers such as Alan Greenspan in the name of the wonderfully sounding "harmonious development," which is said to be part of "Chinese culture," as the right-wing, reactionary Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation "educate" a "new generation" of Chinese youth in "business administration," rather than, the Communist Party of China doing its job in educating the working people and peasants in Marxism where socialist humanism is elevated to the highest level, can escape these kinds of atrocious, uncaring and anti-human aspects of a "free market economy" as working people are told, for some unstated reason--- and without any basis or substance to back it up--- that working people will have to wait for twenty to one-hundred years to attain their very basic and fundamental human rights?

It is because the "leaders" of China have pushed down, rather than raised up, the working class and peasantry to suit the interests of the profit gouging capitalist corporations of the West, that China now finds itself entangled in the same web of corruption and working class repression as any capitalist country... including the most corrupt and repressive of them all--- the United States of America.

This problem of contaminated milk powder went on for weeks making hundreds of babies sick simply because working people and peasants in China have been removed from the decision making process and no longer feel free to bring forward and report this kind of wrong-doing... no different than the more than two-million casino workers employed here in the United States in the Indian Gaming Industry who--- working without ANY rights--- have even less rights than Chinese workers and peasants; who, too, like Chinese workers, are now too intimidated and bullied to tell law enforcement agencies about prostitution, drug dealing, loan-sharking, and the illegal gambling operations that are now bringing corruption even to the youth in American high schools as these illegal betting rings operating out of the casinos make pay-offs to high school quarterbacks and pitchers to throw the games and manipulate point spreads for these bookies to make profits.

As both socialist Minnesota Governors, Floyd B. Olson and Elmer A. Benson, repeatedly pointed out, it is the epitome of naivete, to think or suggest, that the corruption which permeates every facet of our lives--- from the church to the schoolroom to the corporate boardrooms to the offices of mayors and the Sate Houses and Halls of Congress--- can be eliminated as long as capitalist greed is the dominant force and motivator of any society.

Both Floyd B. Olson and Elmer A. Benson were very clear on this point: For humanity to rise above the corruption and decadence of capitalist society, a new system of cooperative socialism would have to be brought into existence by working people and farmers, united, who were sincere in desiring real change... the Minnesota Farmer Labor Party, like the Chinese Communist Party tried to make the needed change--- both met stiff opposition from the same very powerful capitalist class of Wall Street coupon clippers.

One would think that working class Communists and peasants in China would have come forward already and said the same thing Barack Obama is saying about the situation here regarding eight long years of the Bush-Cheney Administration--- the most corrupt in American history: ENOUGH.

Simply taking these crooked and corrupt culprits in the management of this Chinese dairy enterprise out in a cow pasture and putting a bullet in their heads is not enough... because those who do the bribing and foster the corruption are being placed on a pedestal and elevated to positions of high power and influence.

Chinese workers--- like workers, peasants and farmers everywhere--- need to get rid of capitalism rather than give in to the perversions of "market socialism" and "new thinking," which are nothing more than code-words for allowing capitalism and all forms of exploitation and corruption to thrive.

Again, as Barack Obama has pointed out, "You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. You can wrap up an old fish in a piece of paper and call it change. It's still going to stink after eight years. We've had enough."

The same thing can be said of "harmonious development" and "market socialism" which is nothing more than putting lipstick on someone like Sarah Palin... call it what you will, capitalism is still capitalism... capitalism is the same corrupt, rotten system no matter what pretty words are used to try to disguise it... no different than a pretty face with lipstick intended to hide what comes out of the mouth as the most backward and reactionary ideas of warmongers and the Wall Street coupon clippers of the military-financial-industrial complex who have built state-monopoly capitalism into a vast web of imperialism now infecting even socialist China with its poisonous corruption.

Certainly, if the American people "have had enough," the Chinese people don't want more of what we want to get rid of.

Alan L. Maki


Chinese dairy knew milk fault weeks before recall


Sep 13, 7:22 AM (ET)

By JOE McDONALD


BEIJING (AP) - A Chinese dairy that sold milk powder linked to kidney stones in infants and one death knew weeks before it ordered a recall that the product contained a banned chemical, the Health Ministry said Saturday.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday that the dairy, Sanlu Group Col, was ordered to stop production as the number of sick babies rose to 432.

A Health Ministry statement gave no indication why Sanlu Group Co., China's biggest milk powder producer, failed to warn consumers immediately. Employees who answered the phone Saturday at the ministry's news office and at China's product safety agency said they had no more information.

In August, Sanlu's testing revealed melamine in the milk powder, a ministry statement said. Melamine is a toxic chemical used in plastics that contaminated pet food last year.

The ministry did not say when Sanlu alerted authorities about its findings but the dairy ordered a recall Thursday of 700 tons of formula made before Aug. 6.

A New Zealand dairy cooperative that owns part of Sanlu said Friday it believed none of the tainted powder was exported.

Kidney problems in infants were reported as early as mid-July but authorities failed to launch a food safety investigation, Xinhua said in a separate report. Another news report said the dairy received complaints as early as March.

Investigators are questioning 78 people about the contamination, which occurred when dairy farmers added melamine to the milk, possibly to make its protein content appear higher, Xinhua said. Melamine is rich in nitrogen and standard tests for protein in bulk food ingredients measure nitrogen levels.

The incident reflects China's enduring problems with product safety despite a shake up of its regulatory system following a spate of warnings and recalls about tainted toothpaste, faulty tires and other goods.

The biggest group of victims is in China itself, where shoddy or counterfeit products are common. Infants, hospital patients and others have been killed or injured by tainted or fake milk, medicines, liquor and other products.

The number of infants suffering kidney stones after being fed Sanlu formula has risen to 432, Xinhua said. It did not give a breakdown of where in China the cases were.

Xinhua cited a Gansu provincial health department spokesman as saying he received reports on July 16 that 16 infants under a year old, all of whom drank Sanlu milk, were suffering a rare kidney ailment. He said the Health Ministry launched an epidemic survey.

"However, there seemed no food and safety survey had been done. Otherwise, the health, and even lives, of many infants could have been saved," Xinhua said.

A Sanlu manager quoted by the newspaper Beijing News said the dairy received complaints in March and June but could not track down the problem.

Another Sanlu manager quoted Friday on the Web site of a leading Chinese business magazine, Caijing, said it refrained from making an announcement because some grocers refused to return tainted powder. The report did not say why that prevented a warning.

Sanlu buys milk from a nationwide network of suppliers that includes 60,000 family farms, according to the company's Web site.

In Taiwan, officials said they had seized thousands of pounds of milk powder produced by Sanlu after Beijing authorities notified them the product was tainted.

Liu Fang-ming of the Taoyuan county government said the shipment, which arrived in June, contained 55,115 pounds of milk powder, but only 21,660 pounds have been recovered so far.

Officials did not say whether any of the milk powder, which is used in baby milk formula and baked goods, had been consumed in Taiwan.

Taiwan has not reported any illnesses from the powder.

It was China's second high-profile case in four years involving harmful baby formula.

In 2004, more than 200 infants suffered malnutrition and at least 12 died after being fed phony formula that contained no nutrients. Some 40 companies were found to be making phony formula and 47 people were arrested.

---

Associated Press researcher Bonnie Cao in Beijing contributed to this report.
Posted by The creators of China and Socialism Blog.