San Lu Contaminated Milk Powder Issue

Prime Minister Helen Clark says New Zealand officials had to blow the whistle with the Chinese government to get action over contaminated infant formula from a company partly owned by dairy giant Fonterra.

Nineteen people have been detained on suspicion of breaking food safety laws in China after 432 babies became ill with kidney stones from being fed formula containing the toxin melamine, which is found in fertilisers and cleaning products.

Kidney stones are crystallised minerals such as sodium and calcium and the condition is extremely rare in babies. The milk powder is being linked to the death of one infant.
The formula’s producer, San Lu Group, is 43% owned by the New Zealand dairy cooperative.
San Lu has been ordered to stop production of the formula, which it says has only been sold in China. More than 8,000 tonnes of baby formula have been pulled off shop shelves and authorities are checking supplies and companies producing milk powder throughout the country, Chinese officials said.

Miss Clark says she was first briefed about the contamination issue 10 days ago, then convened a meeting with senior ministers and officials.
She told Television New Zealand on Monday that officials were directed to go through the New Zealand ambassador to alert Chinese government ministries.

Miss Clark says New Zealand could not have it on its conscience that the joint venture was manufacturing tainted product. She says Fonterra had been trying for weeks to get a recall of the milk formula, but local authorities had refused.
Miss Clark says once the Chinese government had been alerted, a heavy hand had then descended on those authorities to act.

New Zealand’s Centre for Business Ethics says Fonterra’s reputation could be on the line and it needs to explain how it monitors product quality. The centre says Fonterra now has to prove it is doing everything it can to get new management and monitoring systems in place swiftly.
Green Party MP Sue Kedgely is asking whether Fonterra had rigorously investigated San Lu’s standards.

Fonterra seeking meeting with Chinese govtFonterra, which bought the 43% stake in the San Lu Group in 2005 for $153 million, says it has been advised that San Lu has had a quality issue in its products as a result of receiving defective milk in China. It says it is seeking a meeting with the Chinese government to discuss the contamination.
Fonterra says San Lu the has recalled product and put new milk quality testing procedures in place. It says it understands that the product involved is only sold in China and has pushed for a full product recall since it was advised of the issue in August.

A Fonterra spokesperson says its priority is ensuring that the welfare of consumers is being put first. The company says it is pushing hard to make sure San Lu is working closely with the Chinese government to ensure that everything possible is being done.
Fonterra bought its shareholding in San Lu to help establish a presence in China, which is seen as having huge growth potential as a dairy market.
Farmer shareholders concernedFonterra’s farmer shareholders are concerned about the reputation of their company as a result of a milk contamination scandal in China but say it is confident the co-operative is doing all it can to minimise the damage.
Fonterra has refused to be interviewed by the media but its shareholders’ council says it has been fully briefed on the situation.
Chairman Blue Read says shareholders are concerned that Fonterra’s reputation is at stake. He says shareholders will be watching with interest how Fonterra does handle the situation but says it should not put the co-operative off joint partnerships with overseas companies.
Federated Farmers Dairy section chairman Lachlan McKenzie says he does not believe New Zealand’s reputation as a dairy exporter is at risk because San Lu is a Chinese company of which Fonterra has a minority share.

Investigation widened in ChinaReports of the problem first emerged last Wednesday when 14 babies in Gansu province were said to have become ill. The state-run news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday that other cases had emerged in the provinces of Jiangsu, Shandong, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Anhui and Hunan.
China’s Health Minister Gao Qiang has acknowledged China has to improve its food safety supervision.
Xinhua reports the health ministry as saying an initial investigation had confirmed the tainted milk powder was to blame for the nationwide spate of cases of kidney stones in babies. The ministry alleges San Lu knew in August that the formula was tainted with melamine.

Chinese officials trying to track down the source of melamine in the contaminated formula have widened their investigation to the country’s dairy producing regions.
In Taiwan, authorities have sealed all San Lu milk powder products that have yet to be distributed to retailers, after China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said San Lu had exported 25 tonnes of the milk powder to Taiwan in June.
Products tested in NZ ’safe’New Zealand’s Food Safety Authority is carrying out tests on dairy products from China, and all baby formulas sold in New Zealand, as a precaution.
Authority spokesperson Sandra Daly says customs records show no Chinese milk powder has been imported.
However, she says New Zealand parents may still be concerned so the authority was carrying out testing in order to be able to reassure them.
Ms Daley says preliminary tests on all products have come back negative, meaning they are safe.

Guan Eng: Don't review ISA, bin it!

Why bother reviewing the need for the Internal Security Act (ISA) when it should be abolished and dumped out with the trash? Offering this view, Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng also said this would be the ideal way to end to the country's ugly chapter on the use of the dreaded law. Lim (left in photo), who is also DAP secretary-general, blasted the recent call by Gerakan acting president Koh Tsu Koon (right in photo) to set up a parliamentary select committee to review the ISA, which allows for detention without trial. This would be meaningless, a waste of time and against the public interest, he said, noting that the ISA is historical baggage that has become an obstacle to nation building. “It’s a draconian law that has caused (many problems for) the country’s growth into a liberal, progressive and dynamic nation,” he said, pointing out that use of the ISA has also been a hindrance to foreign investments and business expansion. He told journalists in George Town that Gerakan’s proposal for a review - on whether the law should be repealed, amended or retained - only amounted to passing the buck. "It’s a waste of time (to review it) when virtually all Malaysians want to do away with it,” said Lim, who was himself detained under the ISA for 18 months during the infamous Operasi Lallang police sweep in 1987. Questioning their sincerity in tackling the issue, Lim challenged leaders of Gerakan and MCA to emulate Umno stalwart Zaid Ibrahim (left) who had resigned as a cabinet minister because of recent use of the law. The detention of DAP parliamentarian Teresa Kok, 43, journalist Tan Hoon Cheng, 33, and prominent blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin, 58, as reignited calls for abolition of the law. The two women have since been released. Stronger legal clout On another matter, the chief minister said the Penang government will tighten current laws to strengthen the public accounts committee (PAC) a la the Westminster model. This is to curb financial mismanagement and malpractices. “Under the British Westminster model, the PAC is very powerful. We plan to copy the concept to vest more power and authority in the PAC to conduct independent investigations into alleged mismanagement of state funds by public officials,” said Lim. He was asked to comment on a similar move by the Selangor government which, like Penang, is helmed by the opposition Pakatan Rakyat coalition. Lim said the state legal adviser is studying the plan and will come up with recommendations soon on the amendments required. When these take effect, the PAC will have powers to compel witnesses to testify on allegations of abuse and misuse of power, as well as financial irregularities. The changes are being introduced in line with state policy that emphasises competency, accountability and transparency.

U.S. Spy Satellite, Power Gone, May Hit Earth

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Published: January 27, 2008

WASHINGTON — A disabled American spy satellite is rapidly descending and is likely to plunge to Earth by late February or early March, posing a potential danger from its debris, officials said Saturday.

Officials said that they had no control over the nonfunctioning satellite and that it was unknown where the debris might land.

“Appropriate government agencies are monitoring the situation,” Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said in a statement. “Numerous satellites over the years have come out of orbit and fallen harmlessly. We are looking at potential options to mitigate any possible damage this satellite may cause.”

Specialists who follow spy satellite operations suspect it is an experimental imagery satellite built by Lockheed Martin and launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in December 2006 aboard a Delta II rocket. Shortly after the satellite reached orbit, ground controllers lost the ability to control it and were never able to regain communication.

“It’s not necessarily dead, but deaf,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and an analyst of various government space programs.

It is fairly common for satellites to drop out of orbit and enter Earth’s atmosphere, but most break up before they reach the surface, Mr. McDowell said. Such incidents occur every few months, and it is often difficult to control the satellite’s trajectory or its re-entry into the atmosphere. The debris, if any survives the fiery descent, typically lands in remote areas and causes little or no harm.

“For the most part,” Mr. McDowell said, “re-entering space hardware isn’t a threat because so much of the Earth is empty. But one could say we’ve been lucky so far.”

Of particular concern in this case, however, is that the debris from the satellite may include hydrazine fuel, which is typically used for rocket maneuvers in space.

Much of the fuel on the experimental satellite may not have been used and, should the tank survive re-entry into the atmosphere, the remaining fuel would be hazardous to anyone on the ground. It is likely, however, that the tank may rupture on re-entry, and that the fuel would burn off in a fiery plume that would be visible to the naked eye.

John E. Pike, the director of Globalsecurity.org in Alexandria, Va., said that if the satellite in question was a spy satellite, it was unlikely to have any kind of nuclear fuel, but that it could contain toxins, including beryllium, which is often used as a rigid frame for optical components.

Since it was launched, the experimental satellite has been in a slowly decaying orbit. As of Jan. 22, it was moving in a circular orbit at about 275 kilometers above the Earth, Mr. McDowell said. In the last month, its orbit has declined by 15 to 20 kilometers.

“If you plot the curve, it’s now just a matter of weeks before it falls out of orbit,” he said.

The largest uncontrolled re-entry by a NASA spacecraft was that of Skylab, the 78-ton abandoned space station that fell from orbit in 1979.

Virgin Galactic(SpaceShipTwo)

Development of SpaceShipTwo

Artist's concept of the VSS Enterprise

After talks throughout 2004, on September 24, 2004 Virgin Galactic signed a deal worth up to US$21 million with Mojave Aerospace Ventures to license the patents behind the Tier One project for purposes of space tourism. The deal was announced by Branson and Burt Rutan on September 27, 2004 at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London. The initial plan is for Rutan to design and build five suborbital tourist craft based on a scaled-up version of SpaceShipOne. Construction began in 2005, with twelve to eighteen months of intensive testing (comprising at least 50-100 test flights) planned. Actual spaceflights for ordinary citizens are expected to begin on the SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise in Upham, New Mexico soon after. It is unknown whether a recent explosion which took place at Scaled Composites will affect the date of the maiden flight.^[4][5] However, Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites plan to present their SpaceShipTwo with its WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft on January 23, 2008 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

General overview of the spacecraft flights

Artist's concept of WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo together on ascent

It is planned that the spacecraft are to be robust and affordable enough to take paying passengers. The craft is projected to be a six passenger, two pilot craft.^[1] It is planned to make suborbital flights, with a short period of weightlessness. The time from liftoff of the White Knight II booster carrying SpaceShipTwo until the touchdown of SpaceShipTwo after the suborbital flight will be about 2.5 hours. The suborbital flight itself will only be a small fraction of that time. The weightlessness will last approximately 6 minutes.^[2] Passengers will be able to release themselves from their seats during these 6 minutes and float around the cabin.

SpaceShipTwo's performance

SpaceShipTwo will fly a little higher than SpaceShipOne, to a height of 110 km in order to go beyond the defined boundary of space (100 km) and lengthen the experience of weightlessness.^[1] The spacecraft will reach around Mach 3 (1000 m/s), which is slightly faster than current fighter jets are capable of attaining, however the spacecraft will not be able to sustain that speed for long periods of time. To re-enter the atmosphere SpaceShipTwo folds its wings up, and then returns them to their original position for a smooth and gentle glide back onto the runway. The craft has a very limited cross-range capability and therefore has to land in the area where it started.

Bookings

Although the initial deposit is set to be $200,000 for the first 100 to fly, the next 400 will pay a deposit between $100,000 and $175,000; all passengers after that will pay a deposit of only $20,000 each.

Among those reported to have told Branson that they wished to be among the first to fly on the spacecraft are actor William Shatner designer Philippe Starck, The Panic Channel guitarist Dave Navarro,^[10] Alien star Sigourney Weaver, Hollywood director Bryan Singer,^[9] Musician Moby,^[10] socialite Paris Hilton,^[12] and astrophysicist Stephen Hawking (who on January 8, 2007 announced plans to take a sub-orbital flight in 2009^[13]). Also, Richard Branson himself and some of his family members will be launched on the VSS Enterprise's first commercial flight in 2009, before everyone else. In 2006, Richard Branson offered actor William Shatner a free ride on the inaugural space launch in 2008, saving Shatner $200,000; however, Shatner turned it down, and said, "I do want to go up but I need guarantees I'll definitely come back".In addition, other celebrities such as Patrick Stewart have expressed serious doubts about flying into space. In March 2005, Doug Ramsberg, a native of Northglenn, Colorado, won a free trip to suborbital space aboard Virgin Galactic, from a Volvo sweepstakes sponsored by Virgin.In September 2006, Alan Watts, a British businessman, indicated that he was able to redeem 2,000,000 frequent flyer miles for a ticket aboard a 2009 Virgin Galactic space flight.