Wal-Mart stores closed in China after pork probe

[alp227]

Source: BBC

Wal-Mart has had to close temporarily some of its Chinese stores after being accused of selling mislabelled pork.

The local government in Chongqing says the firm falsely advertised the meat as being organic.

China's official Xinhua news agency said officials claimed a total of 63,547 kilogrammes of pork were involved, over two years.

Wal-Mart told the BBC a total of 13 stores have been closed for a 15-day period.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15245029

[Vincardog]

1. Who would have thought it? Maybe it was counterfeit organic pork ordered from a Chinese supplier

[Wait Wut]

2. I can understand their concern, but...

...did the pork contain lead?

[notadmblnd]

3. or cesium, or melamine or formaldehyde?

because that's just a couple of things they put in some of the products that they send here.

[Wait Wut]

4. Exactly.

My opinion on this was "fucking wah". Can't believe I'm on Walmart's side. :eyes: Not that I support false advertising. Mislabeling organic food is a serious problem here and needs to be more strictly regulated. But, still...fucking wah, China.

[NewJeffCT]

5. you do realize that when goods containing lead or melamine or

whatever are shipped here, they're shipped on behalf of American & European companies who moved production to China and then decided not to do proper quality control on the goods they were shipping from the other side of the world? China has been making shoddy products for hundreds of years before America was even in existence, yet American companies were still willing to have products made there with very little change in how they ensured the quality of the products. (some historians think much of the Mongol invasion fleet bound for Japan in the 13th century sank because of shoddy construction done by the Chinese workers who built the ships left them far more vulnerable to storms...)

[notadmblnd]

7. I don't see where it matters

ultimately,it is being done by the manufacturers of the product. the Chinese factories aren't required to to use poisons in the goods they make for US corps, are they? I don't think US corporations are innocent in this either, the Chinese government makes it all to easy for them to look the other way.

[NewJeffCT]

17. Actually

there have been several times where the American manufacturer has had to admit that the problem was in their design and that the Chinese manufacturer was just following the design/specs given to them. This was in regards to some of the high profile toy problems from a few years ago. Of course, that doesn't make the news here in the US.

[wickerwoman]

24. We also dump all of our expired antibiotics and other drugs in China

which the farmers then give to the pigs that are then sold on the domestic (Chinese) market.

So it's not like the corporate irresponsibility or reckless disregard for life is running only one way.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

11. but that argument would get in the way of xenophobia

and umm who wants that ? :hi:

[parkia00]

19. Get to know your history properly

before going on an international forum viewed by thousands and making a joke of yourself. The Mongol fleet was decimated by a typhoon. The Mongols were not sailors and knew very little about seafaring assaults. Fact that many boats that were part of the invasion fleet were commandeered including a majority of river boats that were NEVER meant to go to sea. Boats with a rounded keel that rocked in rough seas. Besides many of the boats made it to Japan anyways and were actually anchored off the coast for some time (it was a stalemate as the Mongols did not know how to assault a beachhead defended by the the Japanese) when the storm hit.

"China has been making shoddy products for hundreds of years before America was even in existence"

Like what? Compared to whom? Compared to other European powers of the time?

[NewJeffCT]

20. Thanks for your input - here you go...

Science has dealt a blow to a Japanese legend which says the country was twice saved from a Mongolian fleet thanks to a "divine wind," or kamikaze, that destroyed the invaders' ships.

A 900-ship fleet, sent by the Mongolian emperor Kublai Khan in 1274, met resistance from Japanese samurai before being forced into retreat by bad weather and was then ripped to pieces by the kamikaze.

Kublai Khan tried again eight years later, amassing a vast fleet of 4,400 ships from China and Korea, most of which were sunk by strong winds off the island of Takashima, in southern Japan.

Ancient documents describing winds that blew down trees suggest that there was indeed a big storm in Japan in 1281, although the evidence is unclear as to how bad the winds really were and how they might have affected the Mongolian fleet.

New evidence, though, suggests that poor design and shoddy workmanship may have been the principal cause of the Mongols' defeat, the British weekly New Scientist says in its next issue, out on Saturday.

Randall Sasaki, an archaeologist at Texas A&M University, has pored over fragmented remains of the 1281 fleet that were found in 1981.

Of about 700 pieces of ship hauled up from the seabed off Takashima, none was larger than three metres (10 feet), and most are between 10 centimetres (four inches) and one metre (3.25 feet).

The find initially disappointed many who had hoped for something bigger, but a closer examination of these pieces has given insights into Mongolian workmanship, New Scientist says.

Sasaki has studied around 500 of the fragments and says many of the timbers have nails placed very close together, sometimes with five or six in the same location.

"This suggests the timbers were recycled to construct these ships," he told New Scientist. "Also, some of the timbers were themselves of poor quality."

As for the design of the ship, Chinese documents suggest that many of the vessels in the 1281 fleet were flat-bottomed river boats, which would have been unstable in the open sea.

"So far, we have found no evidence of sea-going, V-shaped keels at Takashima," says Kenzo Hayashida of the Kyushu Okinawa Society for Underwater Archaeology, which found the remains of the fleet in 1981.

Sasaki hopes more will be revealed by sonar and ground-penetrating radar, for less than 0.5 percent of the site where the fleet sank has been studied so far.

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/050119/1/3pym2.html

[parkia00]

21. Yes, like what I said. I'm glad that you now know.

River boats used for the wrong purpose. Small NOT sea going boats. Yet if you think this proves the point you are trying to make that the Chinese are shit at doing anything throughout history is as stable as those boats. The same people that built ocean going junks that went all the way to Africa? The first ships with sealed multiple water tight compartments? The first sail boats that could extend and contract their sails without anyone going up to the mast.

[NewJeffCT]

22. and, here is some more information for you

It is possible that a typhoon was responsible for the sinking of the ships as August and September, when the fleet was anchored off Takashima, is right in the middle of the typhoon season. However, after consulting typhoon experts, Kenzo learns that it is very unlikely that a typhoon would have sunk all of the ships. At the time, the Chinese were among the best shipbuilders in the world and these ships should have been very sea-worthy.

Further investigation of the artefacts recovered from the seabed revealed that many of the craft making up the fleet were simple riverboats that would not stand up to a storm. Furthermore, of the ships that were constructed for the endeavour, many were of of poor build quality due to the use of a conscripted workforce.

http://www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/interesting-documentary/khubilai-khan.html

[NewJeffCT]

23. And, my point was

why is everybody blaming the Chinese for producing bad products for American companies? Aren't the American companies more at fault for outsourcing their production and then not checking the quality of the products being shipped from their new production facilities? Why are the folks at Hill's Pet Nutrition completely innocent when it was their decision to outsource to China and then not check the quality of the goods that were coming here from China?

similarly, when an American toy company moves their production to a factory in China and provides faulty specs to the Chinese factory, why is Mattel not at fault for (1)providing bad specs; (2) not checking the quality of the toys coming into the US; and (3) not doing their due diligence at their Chinese production facility?

[harmonicon]

10. Yeah, fuck those Chinese people and what they eat.

I mean, it's not like they're people; they're just chinamen, right?

[glinda]

6. The suppliers deserve to eat what my pets ate.....

[Gore1FL]

8. Arguably, it's organic if it has carbon in it... n/t

[obxhead]

9. You know you've fucked up when the Chinese gov closes you down

for failed safety.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

12. so true nt

[comtec]

13. wait a minute... CHINA HAS STANDARDS!?!?!?!?!?!?

color me fucking shocked!

[boppers]

14. Somebody didn't pay their bribe.

This is how a culture of bribery enforces, by "suddenly" noticing something that's been going on for two years.

[SoapBox]

15. ROFL...exactly.

Who would have known that China would be mad that WaldoMart was poking the pork...or was that paying with pork...or playing with a pig...or...

whatever.

[stockholmer]

16. "pork probe" and Wal-Mart in same sentence always bodes ill winds and ominous mental pictures

:scared:

[durablend]

18. Heh...same thought I had

"Heh heh heh he said 'pork probe'! "