Baru saja ada pembicaraan kerjasama RI-Cina tentang kerjasama dalam
pemberantasan korupsi. Jadi miris ah, kalau begini dijalankan dinegeri kita,
akan
banyak banget yang kena, tapi lalu KKN memang bisa turun drastis, barangkali.
Last Updated: Tuesday, 29 May 2007, 08:22 GMT 09:22 UK
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Death penalty for China official
Zheng Xiaoyu was accused of accepting some $850,000 in bribes
China has sentenced the former head of the State Food and Drug Administration
to death after he was convicted of corruption, state media has reported.
Zheng Xiaoyu was convicted on charges of taking bribes and of dereliction of
duty, Xinhua news agency reported. The sentence is unusually harsh for a
senior figure, but Zheng could have his sentence reduced to life on appeal.
The verdict came as the government announced plans for the first ever recall
system of unsafe food products. Beijing has been under pressure to act over
increasing concern both at home and abroad about the poor standards of
Chinese-produced food and medicines. Name poisoned State television showed
footage of a grey-haired Zheng - who was expelled from the Communist Party
earlier this year - appearing in court in Beijing flanked by police officers.
He had been accused by an official investigation last month of accepting more
than 6.5m yuan ($850,000) in bribes to approve hundreds of drugs.
One company, Kongliyuan Group, allegedly paid Zheng bribes in return for
approving 277 drugs, mostly antibiotics. Zheng's former secretary, Cao
Wenzhuang, also faced trial, accused of accepting bribes. Thirty-one other
people were also alleged to have been involved in the scandal, including
Zheng's wife, Liu Naixue, and his son, Zheng Hairong. Following Zheng's
sacking in 2005, the Chinese government announced a review of about 170,000
medical licences that were awarded during his tenure at the agency. Dozens of
people have died in China because of poor quality or fake drugs. Last year, a
sub-standard antibiotic, Xinfu, which was not properly sterilised, caused the
deaths of 11 people. Thirteen babies died of malnutrition in 2005 after being
fed powdered milk that contained no nutritional value. The Chinese government
recently announced an urgent review of industry food standards after public
alarm over a recent spate of cases. US inspectors blamed exported
Chinese pet food ingredients, contaminated with melamine, for the deaths of
cats and dogs in North America. And they recently halted shipments of
toothpaste from China to investigate reports that they may be contaminated with
toxic chemicals. On Tuesday, as Zheng was sentenced, the government said a
new recall process targeting "potentially dangerous and unapproved food
products" would be brought in by the end of the year. "All domestic and
foreign food producers and distributors will be obliged to follow the system,"
Wu Jianping, of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection
and Quarantine, was quoted as saying.
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