China Update
Published by MAC on 2007-01-29
China Update
29th January 2007
"Gentle measures don't work" declared Pan Yue, China's vice minister of the state's environmental protection administration (SEPA). He is referring to the regime's failure to clean up the country's grave pollution in the face of "special interests".
A few days later, as if to confirm Yue's scepticism, China's top oil and gas producer was fined a mere US$128,000 for a toxic spill last November which killed eight people and poisoned drinking water for three million more.
In mid-January SEPA discovered that a state-owned coking coal factory was still emitting an unacceptably high level of toxics, despite an order to adopt cleaner technology' SEPA has reportedly shut the company down.