China’s tainted milk companies to compensate victims

October 2nd, 2009 Nestle stops buying Mugabe farm milkJOHANNESBURG — Nestle says it will stop buying milk from Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's wife's farm after facing worldwide boycott threats. The international food company said in a statement Thursday that it had been buying from Grace Mugabe's farm because the cash-strapped national Dairy Board could not.

June 3rd, 2009 China closes 4,000 milk collection stationsBEIJING — China has shut down nearly 4,000 milk collection stations for failing to meet safety standards, nine months after tainted milk products were blamed for sickening hundreds of thousands of babies and killing six children, the official Xinhua News Agency said Wednesday. The closures come after the government inspected all of the country's 20,393 milk collection stations since last November, Song Kungang, director-general of the China Dairy Industry Association, said, according to Xinhua.

April 29th, 2009 NEW YORK - Dairy milk scores over calcium in promoting bone growth and strength, according to a study conducted at Purdue University. Connie Weaver, food and nutrition professor at Purdue University, found that the bones of rats fed non-fat dry milk were longer, wider, more dense and stronger than those of rats fed a diet with calcium carbonate.

April 21st, 2009 Chinese dairy launches new milk powder productsBEIJING — The Chinese dairy that bought the company at the heart of a tainted milk scandal that sickened hundreds of thousands of children has launched a new line of milk powder products, state media reported Tuesday. The new products are manufactured by Hebei Sanyuan Foods Co.

March 4th, 2009 AHMEDABAD - At least 61 students of a government school in Gujarat were taken ill Tuesday after drinking milk supplied by a co-operative dairy, official sources said. The milk, in 200 gm pouches, is supplied daily to the primary students in the school premises under the 'Bal Nirogi Varsh' (Healthy Child Year) project of the state government in Gujarat's predominantly tribal regions.

February 23rd, 2009 LOS ANGELES - Dustin Lance Black won the best original screenplay Oscar for 'Milk' about California's first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk. Directed by Gus Van Sant, the film narrates the story of Milk, a San Francisco supervisor who was assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone by San Francisco Supervisor Dan White.

February 9th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Hollywood actor Sean Penn, who plays Harvey Milk, a gay activist in Oscar nominated biopic 'Milk', got mobbed by gay leaders during the shoot of the film in San Francisco. Inspired by Penn's acting skills, the same-sex leaders had a luncheon with the actor on the sets.

February 6th, 2009 PANAJI - India needs to actively pursue a National Milk Vision 2020 in an integrated manner if it is to hold its position as a global milk production giant, former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam said here Saturday.

January 21st, 2009 SHIJIAZHUANG - Two men were sentenced to death Thursday by a local court in connection with the China tainted milk scandal in which about 296,000 infants suffered kidney stones and other urinary problems. Zhang Yujun, who produced and sold melamine-laced 'protein powder', was convicted of endangering public security and given capital punishment by the Shijiazhuang Intermediate People's Court, while the other man Geng Jinping was convicted of producing and selling toxic food.

January 19th, 2009 LONDON - German supermodel Christie Brinkley has launched a poster of herself wearing a milk moustache at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah under an advertising campaign 'Got Milk'. Contactmusic.com reports that Brinkley was one of the celebrities involved with the campaign 14 years ago when it first began.

January 12th, 2009 ANAND - Milk farmers from Jammu and Kashmir, who were on a visit to the state of 'white revolution', feel inspired by their Gujarati counterparts for their success in creating Amul as one of Asia's largest milk brand. At least 50 milk producers of Jammu and Kashmir Milk Producers' Co-operative Ltd (JKMPCL) came on a five-day Amul Yatra in the first week of January to study a model of milk production.

January 1st, 2009 BEIJING - Through a New Year text message sent to millions of mobile phone subscribers, a group of Chinese dairy firms has apologised to people for the country's biggest milk scandal that killed at least six babies and made 290,000 ill. 'We are deeply sorry for the harm we have brought to children and to society,' said the message by the dairy firms led by the Sanlu Group, which is at the centre of the tainted milk controversy.

December 30th, 2008 SHIJIAZHUANG - A court in northern Chiba Wednesday began trial of four senior executives of Sanlu Group, the major dairy producer at the centre of the country's tainted milk scandal that claimed lives of at least six infants. The court in Shijiazhuang, capital city of Hebei province, tried Tian Wenhua, the former general manager of Sanlu, and three other senior executives on charges of 'producing and selling fake or substandard commodities'.

December 28th, 2008 SHIJIAZHUNG - A Chinese court Monday arraigned four people involved in the tainted baby food scandal, which killed six babies and affected nearly 300,000, for violating public security. The Shijiazhuang Intermediate People's Court, which began the hearing for Gao Junjie, Xue Jianzhong, Zhang Yanjun and Xiao Yu (Gao's wife), was told that the four accused produced and sold more than 200 tons of 'protein powder' that was made from toxic industrial chemical melamine, malt dextrin and whey powder.

December 25th, 2008 SHIJIAZHUANG - Six people involved in China's melamine-tainted baby food scandal went on trial Friday in four courts in the northern province of Hebei. Prosecutors charged Zhang Yujun and Zhang Yanzhang, who appeared at the Shijiazhuang intermediate people's court, with compromising public security.