Business Reporters Shine In 2008 Pulitzers

Walt Bogdanich, New York Times Reporter after receiving news that he had won his third Pulitzer.

Business reporters win top honors for stories about tainted toys and counterfeit drugs and toothpaste from China, to the privatization of services to business contractors in Iraq.

Two prizes were awarded for investigative reporting: to Walt Bogdanich and Jake Hooker of The Times, for articles about counterfeit and toxic drugs from China; and to The Chicago Tribune staff, for exposing flawed government regulation of toys, car seats and cribs.

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING: WALT BOGDANICH and JAKE HOOKER

* Complete Series: A Toxic Pipeline From NYTimes.com
* Times Topics: Walt Bogdanich

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING: CHICAGO TRIBUNE STAFF
For articles exposuring faulty governmental regulation of toys, car seats and cribs.

* Hidden Hazards: Kids at Risk Series From Chicagotribune.com

INTERNATIONAL REPORTING: STEVE FAINARU
For an examination in the Washington Post of private security contractors in Iraq.

* Private Armies | The Role of Private Contractors in Iraq From Washingtonpost.com

ttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/business/2008pulitzers-journalism.html?ex=1365393600&en=ae9b8268ab9750c3&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Got a Mint, Comrade? Chinese Ban Liquid Lunch

A Communist Party campaign in Xinyang, China, seeks to catch civil servants partaking of alcohol-soaked meals. Drinking on the job is hardly unique to China, but ritualized drinking is deeply ingrained in China’s business culture. Restaurants usually offer private banquet rooms, some with lounge areas, flat-screen televisions and private bathrooms. Tables are often set with specific glasses for beer, wine or baijiu, the fiery Chinese liquor that lubricates nearly every banqueting experience.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/08/world/asia/08china.html?ex=1362718800&en=d7393820747ef40b&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Central Banker Dismisses Prospect of Yuan Surge

BEIJING -- China's central-bank governor said a stronger currency isn't the best or only way to fight inflation, countering widespread expectations that the yuan's gains will accelerate as the nation's prices rise at their fastest pace in more than a decade.

"Faster currency appreciation helps to rein in inflation, but not a lot," Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China, told reporters on Thursday. "To curb inflation, we will rely more on domestic policies....There is no need to use exchange-rate reforms as a way to fight inflation.

Mr. Zhou's statements were unusual because the central bank is widely seen as an advocate of a stronger currency, a policy that is disliked by exporters and often has been opposed by other parts of the Chinese bureaucracy. Indeed, in its October monetary policy report, the People's Bank of China wrote that "Theoretical economic analysis and the experience of many countries both show that an appreciation of the currency helps contain domestic inflation."

China has pushed up the yuan at a faster rate against the dollar since inflation first surged above 3% in March last year. The Chinese currency rose 4.2% against the dollar in the second half of last year alone, and is up a further 2.6% this year. (Because the dollar is falling against other currencies, the yuan is down 1.9% against the euro this year.)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120480262528616485.html?mod=todays_europe_money_and_investing

Labs to Get Job of Ensuring Toy Safety

Congress is giving the job of ensuring that children's products are safe to many of the same private laboratories that already work for importers, manufacturers and retailers.

A bill approved yesterday by the Senate -- as well as a similar bill already passed by the House -- aims to plug holes in the government's consumer safety net that have been letting hazardous products aimed at children slip through. Dozens of toys were recalled by manufacturers in 2007 because of dangers including choking risks and contamination involving lead, asbestos and other toxic chemicals.

Under the new bills, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission would develop procedures for certifying and monitoring the work of independent labs that test for conformance with federal safety standards. The commission would also have more powers, including the ability to assess fines of up to $20 million for violations of product safety laws.

China Plans Steep Increase in Military Spending

Sustained increases in its annual defense outlays put China on track to become a major military power. China’s military budget for 2008 will increase by 17.6 percent to 417.8 billion yuan, or about $58.8 billion, Jiang Enzhu, spokesman for the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature, said at a news conference. This follows a 17.8 percent increase in 2007.

Military experts in the United States and elsewhere say Beijing’s real military spending is at least double the announced figure. But even if it was double, China’s yearly military budget would still be only about one-fourth the size of the Pentagon’s. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/world/asia/05china.html?ex=1362459600&en=0616459f1f798579&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Blood Thinner Made In China May Be Tied To Deaths

Amid indications that more people may have died or been harmed after being given a brand of the blood thinner heparin, federal drug regulators said Thursday that they had found “potential deficiencies” at a Chinese plant that supplied much of the active ingredient for the drug. Baxter International, which makes the brand of heparin associated with the problems, and buys supplies from the Chinese plant, announced that it was expanding a recall to include virtually all its heparin products. Though Baxter produces much of the heparin used in the United States, regulators said the other major supplier would be able to meet the demand.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/us/29heparin.html?ex=1362027600&en=25c527943d7f8c94&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

China Eats Crow Over Faked Photo

HONG KONG -- It turns out that train tracks in Tibet aren't where the antelope play.

Earlier this week, Xinhua, China's state-run news agency, issued an unusual public apology for publishing a doctored photograph of Tibetan wildlife frolicking near a high-speed train.

The deception -- uncovered by Chinese Internet users who sniffed out a Photoshop scam in the award-winning picture -- has brought on a big debate about media ethics, China's troubled relationship with Tibet, and how pregnant antelope react to noise.

The antelope imbroglio began in the summer of 2006. The Chinese government was celebrating its latest engineering feat, and an enthusiastic wildlife photographer from the Daqing Evening News was camped out on the Tibetan plateau eating energy bars and waiting for antelope to pass.

On July 1, 2006, in an event scheduled to coincide with the Communist Party's 85th birthday, Chinese President Hu Jintao hosted the launch of China's train to the "roof of the world." The $4 billion Qinghai-Xizang railway -- a remarkable system that transports passengers to an altitude (16,000 feet) so high that ballpoint pens can explode en route from the air-pressure change -- traverses 1,200 miles of rugged terrain to connect the rest of China to the remote Tibetan plateau.

The train, which soon brought many visitors to the pristine homeland of Tibetan Buddhists, became a flash point for China's long simmering tensions with Tibet. During construction, it drew fierce protests from environmentalists who said it would threaten the breeding grounds of the chiru, an endangered antelope species found mainly in China.

When the train service began, a remarkable photograph appeared in hundreds of newspapers, and it eased environmental concerns. The picture, captioned "Qinghai-Tibet railway opens green passage for wildlife," featured dozens of antelope galloping peacefully across the Tibetan landscape, unfazed as the gleaming silver train raced beside them.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120363429707884255.html

Gaps Found in China Supply Chain

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120354600035281041.html?mod=hps_us_pageone
YUANLOU, China -- In a small, damp factory here, blood-smeared men wring pulp from pig intestines, then heat it in concrete vats.

The activity at Yuan Intestine & Casing Factory is the first step in the poorly regulated process of making raw heparin, the main ingredient in a type of blood-thinning medicine that in recent days has come under suspicion in the deaths of four Americans.

More than half the world's heparin comes from China. The chemical is often extracted from pig entrails in small factories -- many as rudimentary as this one, which also manufactures sausage casings from intestines. The heparin eventually ends up in drugs used world-wide by patients having surgery or who need dialysis.Heparin goes through extensive processing in its journey from abattoir to IV bag. Nevertheless, because some of it originates in tiny Chinese factories like these, if there's a problem with the final medication, it can be nearly impossible to trace the raw heparin back to the source, the pigs whose tissue was used to make it.

China's Alternative Reality

China will soon boast more internet users than any other country. But usage patterns inside China are different from those elsewhere
ONE of the more striking end-of-year statistics pumped out recently by the Chinese government was an update on the number of internet users in the country, which had reached 210m. It is a staggering figure, up by more than 50% on the previous year and more than three times the number for India, the emerging Asian giant with which China is most often compared. Within a few months, according to Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, China will have more internet users than America, the current leader. And because the proportion of the population using the internet is so low, at just 16%, rapid growth is likely to continue for some time.

That such a big, increasingly wealthy and technologically adept country has embraced the internet is no surprise, but it has done so in a very different way from other countries. That is in large part the result of the government's historically repressive approach towards information and entertainment. News is censored, television is controlled by the state, and bookshops and cinemas, shuttered during the Cultural Revolution, are still scarce.
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10608655

Two Chinese firms indicted in tainted pet food scandal

Two Chinese companies and an American importer were indicted on charges of intentionally defrauding American manufacturers about poisonous ingredients used in pet food. Tainted wheat gluten, used as an ingredient in moist pet food, killed at least 16 dogs and cats, sickened thousands of others and led to one of the biggest pet food recalls in American history, involving companies like Procter & Gamble and Menu Foods. It was also a prelude to scores of other recalls of Chinese-made products last year, including tires, fish, children’s jewelry and toys.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/business/worldbusiness/07pet.html?ex=1360126800&en=185b4716ee8a55b0&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Exporters brace for a U.S. pullback

HONG KONG — Asian exporters are already feeling the effects of an American economic downturn — effects that may be magnified by a weak dollar, volatile world markets and fears that more bad loans may be ticking in the coffers of American companies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/business/worldbusiness/25export.html?ex=1359003600&en=0a06d630629b4784&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Toxic Factories take a toll on China's workers

(Wall Street Journal P-1 Jan. 15 -2008) Chinese workers making goods for American consumers have long borne the brunt of a global manufacturing system that puts cost cutting ahead of safety. The search for cheaper production means dirty industries are migrating to countries with few worker protections and lenient regulatory environments. Cadmium batteries are safe to use. They are also cheap, saving American parents about $1.50 on the average toy, compared with pricier batteries. But cadmium batteries can be hazardous to make. In southern China The nickel-cadmium battery illustrates this trend. Once widely manufactured in the West, the batteries are now largely made in China, where the industry is sickening workers and poisoning the soil and water. Now, some regulators and companies are taking action. This year, the European Union is banning the sale of nearly all cadmium batteries. A few companies, including Hasbro Inc., are eschewing the battery.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119972343587572351.html

Cures in China?

BEIJING -- They're paralyzed from diving accidents or car crashes, disabled by Parkinson's or blind. With few options at home in America, they search the Internet for experimental treatments -- and often land on Web sites promoting stem-cell treatments in China. These people mortgage their houses. Their hometowns hold fund raisers. They find tens of thousands of dollars so they can travel in hopes of a miracle. But documentation is mostly lacking, and Western doctors warn that patients are serving as guinea pigs in a country that isn't doing the rigorous lab and human tests needed to prove a treatment is safe and effective.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/insight/stories/2008/01/13/Medical_Tourism-China.ART_ART_01-13-08_

China cracks down on unsafe coal mines

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 13, 2008

Filed at 5:16 a.m. ET

BEIJING (AP) -- China has closed more than 11,000 small coal mines as part of a two-year-old safety crackdown aimed at stemming the industry's high death toll, the government reported Sunday.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gYEiaYZmvNhJnDHTRXiPMGLlQjagD8U4UAUO1

China gets the lead out

Wondering what happened to all the lead-tainted products that have been recalled recently? The New York Times reports that one company that recalled 350,000 lead-tainted journals and bookmarks plans to burn them in an incinerator. In the meantime, it is storing the hazardous parts in 55-gallon drums near its headquarters. Research firms found that some toys recalled this summer have appeared this fall on auction Web sites like eBay and other sites that sell products in bulk to businesses, including Made-in-China.com.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/22/business/22lead.html?ex=1356066000&en=9b69f2c04b294047&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/15/business/worldbusiness/15imports.html?ex=1347422400&en=106b74ee8efb8b4f&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink