Xinhua Daily Telegraph

Fraud Rife

September 7, 2010

The Henan Provincial Audit Office said in a recent report that funds earmarked for the province's food safety testing facilities were frequently embezzled. It also added that existing county-level agricultural product quality inspection stations were operating poorly.

In order to ensure food safety, the Central Government has put 120 million yuan ($17.65 million) into food safety testing facilities in Henan Province in recent years, but where has it gone?

It has been reported the Weixian County Agricultural Bureau spent 196,200 yuan ($28,853) on an expensive car, the Xixian County Agricultural Product Quality Inspection Station misused appropriations for workers' allowances and the Henan Provincial Agricultural Department used 4.5 million yuan ($661,765) to build a new office building.

China Youth Daily

Power Outages

September 7, 2010

 Anping County in north China's Hebei Province began rotational power cuts for local residents on September 3, notionally for the purpose of reaching its prefixed target of reducing annual energy consumption by 6.6 percent. Though power supplies to hospitals and traffic lights resumed on September 5, local officials said there would be new restrictions.

But the Electricity Law stipulates electric power suppliers should not disrupt supplies to users while power generation and supply systems are working well. Therefore, Anping's power cuts are considered illegal.

In order to deal with power cuts, people turned to gasoline and diesel generators for help, which caused greater energy consumption.

More importantly, the county's really big power users are not households, or hospitals, or traffic lights, but energy-consuming industries, such as the wire mesh processing enterprises that are major sources of revenue for the county.