China is the third largest exporter of seafood to the United States.

Washington,
June 29--Farmed seafood has now joined tires, toothpaste and toy trains on the list of tainted and defective products from China that could be hazardous to a person’s health.
Federal health officials said Thursday they were detaining three types of Chinese fish--catfish, basa and dace--as well as shrimp and eel after repeated testing turned up contamination with drugs unapproved in the United States for use in farmed seafood.
The officials said there have been no reports of illnesses nor do the products pose any immediate health risk. They stopped short of ordering a ban on the fresh and frozen seafood.
The Food and Drug Administration announcement was the latest in an expanding series of problems with imported Chinese products that seemingly permeate US society.
Beyond the fish, federal regulators have recently warned consumers about lead paint in toy trains, defective tires, and toothpaste made with diethylene glycol, a toxic ingredient more commonly found in antifreeze. All the products were imported from China.
China, meanwhile, insisted Thursday that the safety of its products was “guaranteed,“ making a rare direct comment on spreading international fears over tainted and adulterated exports, reported AP.
FDA officials said the level of the drugs in the seafood was low. The FDA isn’t asking stores or consumers to toss any of the suspect seafood.
“In order to get cancer in lab animals you have to feed fairly high levels of the drug over a long term,“ said Dr. David Acheson, the FDA’s assistant commissioner for food protection. “We’re talking not days, weeks, not even months but years. At these levels you might not reach that level, but we don’t want to take a chance.“
He added, “We don’t want to be alarmist here....It’s a low likelihood.“
The FDA said sampling of Chinese imported fish between October and May repeatedly found traces of the antibiotics nitrofuran and fluoroquinolone, as well as the antifungals malachite green and gentian violet. Of particular concern are the fluoroquinolones, a family of widely used human antibiotics that the FDA forbids in seafood in part to prevent bacteria from developing resistance to these important drugs. The best known example is ciprofloxacin, sold as Cipro, which made headlines as a treatment during the 2001 anthrax attacks.
The FDA will allow individual shipments of the five seafood species into the country if a company can show the products are free of residues of these drugs.
China is the third largest exporter of seafood to the United States, according to the FDA.
More than half of its global seafood exports are farmed. But the FDA inspects only about 5 percent of farmed Chinese fish, agency officials said.

A series of deadly accidents have fueled concerns about IndonasiaÕs rapidly growing airline industry.

United Nations, June 29--All 51 Indonesian airlines will be barred from flying to the European Union from next week after EU air safety experts deemed them to be unsafe, the European Commission said Thursday.
Experts decided on the ban, which includes national flag carrier Garuda, after a series of recent crashes in the Asian archipelago and Indonesian authorities’ failure to give adequate safety assurances, an EU official said.
The ban will become official on July 6, when the European Commission is to update its list of airlines forbidden from entering EU skies in line with the air safety experts’ recommendations.
Although no Indonesian airlines currently fly regularly to and from the EU, the ban could have a big impact on passengers traveling in Indonesia as the European summer holiday period gets underway.
Under European rules, passengers must be informed if an airline is on the list of banned carriers and can demand reimbursement or an alternative carrier for tickets bought in Europe for flights that do not enter EU skies.
“Once more, the EU black list will prove to be an essential tool...to prevent unsafe airlines from flying to Europe and to inform passengers traveling worldwide,“ EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot said.
The European air safety experts deemed the ban to be necessary after finding “serious“ failings in maintenance, operating, certification and administrative standards, an EU official said on condition of anonymity.
Indonesian authorities also left repeated European requests for information unanswered until just before the experts met on Wednesday, but even then they could not answer basic questions like how many aircraft Indonesian carriers had, another EU official said.
A series of deadly accidents have fueled concerns about the country’s rapidly growing airline industry, which suffers from old planes, poor standards and insufficient investment in infrastructure, according to Indonesian experts.
Iing Iskandar, director of air transport safety at Indonesia’s transport ministry, told AFP that they had not received any formal notification from the EU and could not comment on the European move.
He noted that the United States’ Federal Aviation Authority had in April announced that Indonesia does not comply with international safety standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization.
The air safety experts also decided to include the Ukrainian freight carrier Volare and the Angolan company TAAG Angola Airlines on the list of carriers banned from plying European skies.

Don Siegelman

Washington,
June 29--Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman was sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy got nearly seven years Thursday in a bribery and corruption case that the judge said damaged public trust in state government, said AP.
Supporters of both men had testified at their sentencing hearing, describing the positive impact they have had in Alabama during their careers, as attorneys pleaded with US District Judge Mark Fuller to show mercy.
“While it is true the good far exceeds the bad, I must impose a fair punishment to reassure all that come before this court that justice is blind,“ Fuller said in sentencing Siegelman.
Both men were immediately taken into custody after the judge denied defense requests to let them remain free while they appeal.
The two once-prominent figures in politics and business were escorted out of the courtroom by US marshals and were not allowed to talk to family members.
Siegelman was fined $50,000 due immediately and ordered to pay $181,325 in restitution to a state agency where prosecutors said kickbacks were made. He is to perform 500 hours of community service when his sentence of seven years, four months is completed.
Scrushy was fined $150,000 due immediately, plus ordered to pay restitution of $267,000 to United Way of Central Alabama. He also was ordered to perform 500 hours of community service after serving six years and 10 months in prison.
Both are to be on supervised release for three years when their terms end.

Singapore,
June 29--Singapore’s red-hot property market has booked its costliest collective sale of high rise apartments for redevelopment, with a value of 1.34 billion dollars (875 million US), the companies involved said.
Southeast Asia’s biggest property developer CapitaLand said in a statement late Thursday it has bought the 618-unit Farrer Court residential condominium in an “en bloc“ sale, an increasingly popular method of selling older apartment complexes in the city-state.
CapitaLand said it plans to redevelop the site into a “luxurious 36-storey condominium“ with about 1,500 units. The development will be ready for launch in the first half of 2009, it said, reported AFP.
Property consultancy Credo Real Estate, which handled the deal, said it was the biggest collective sale in the city-state’s booming property market.
“The collective sale...is Singapore’s largest not only in terms of the sale value but also the land area, the number of units and the buildable gross floor area,“ said Credo Real Estate executive director Tan Hong Boon.
“This transaction could also well be Singapore’s biggest residential land sale ever.“
Collective sales of condominiums are increasing in popularity as the land-scarce but prosperous island nation moves to meet a growing demand for luxury and ultra-luxury high rise homes.
Developers usually offer a premium price for the targeted condominiums to prompt homeowners to decide to sell as a bloc. Eighty percent of homeowners must agree for a collective sale to proceed.
There have been some complaints that those who decide not to sell their units are harassed by the majority to force them to go along.

Tokyo, June 29-- Japan’s consumer prices fell 0.1 percent in May, a pace of decline unlikely to dissuade the central bank from raising its benchmark interest rate, the lowest among major economies.
Consumer prices excluding fresh food decreased for a fourth month from a year ago, the statistics bureau said in Tokyo. The drop matched the median estimate of 45 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Prices fell at the same rate in April and 0.3 percent in March, the steepest decline in two years.
The jobless rate held at a nine-year low of 3.8 percent in May and household spending rose for a fifth month, separate reports showed. Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui said last month that price declines wouldn’t necessarily prevent the bank from raising the key rate from 0.5 percent as long as it’s confident about the prospects for economic growth, reported Bloomberg.
“The data aren’t likely to deter the Bank of Japan from raising interest rates,“ said Takuma Kurosawa, global markets treasurer at HSBC Bank in Tokyo. “We could see a hike in August.“ The Bank of Japan’s quarterly Tankan business confidence survey on July 2 will give policy makers more evidence of the strength of the economy. Sentiment among large manufacturers probably stayed near a two-year high and companies are planning to spend more, according to economists, reported Bloomberg.
The yen traded at 123.37 per dollar at 3:34 p.m. in Tokyo from 123.13 before the report was published. The yield on Japan’s benchmark 10-year bond fell 4 basis points to 1.87 percent on speculation investors are buying the securities to match a monthly change in a benchmark index.
Tokyo’s core prices unexpectedly fell 0.1 percent in June, the first drop in three months. Prices for the capital are released a month ahead of the nationwide number and seen as an indicator of the direction of Japan’s prices.

WASHINGTON, June 29--The head of the International Monetary Fund, Rodrigo Rato, said Thursday he will step down in October for personal reasons, casting a cloud over the major internal reform effort he launched.
The imf chief’s announcement comes as the 185-nation financial institution faces criticism that it serves the interests of wealthy nations by trying to impose free-market practices, AFP reported.
It also follows this week’s forced change of leadership because of scandal at the imf’s sister institution, the World Bank.
Rato informed the imf executive board that he will not be able to serve the full length of his five-year term as managing director, the Washington-based multilateral institution said.
He “intends to leave the Fund in October following the conclusion of the 2007 annual meetings of the boards of Governors of the imf and World Bank Group,“ the imf said in a statement.
The statement quoted Rato’s explanation of his decision to the board:
“I have taken this decision for personal reasons. My family circumstances and responsibilities, particularly with regard to the education of my children, are the reason for relinquishing earlier than expected my responsibilities at the Fund,“ Rato said.
The 58-year-old Rato, separated and the father of three children, is a former Spanish finance minister credited with that country’s economic “miracle.“
He succeeded Horst Koehler of Germany in June 2004 for a five-year term after Koehler resigned to stand for the German presidency.

London, June 29--Oxford Business Group (OBG) is the media sponsor of this year’s City and GCC Countries Conference.
The aim of the annual conference at the Merchant Taylors’ Hall in London is to support the City of London Corporation and the Middle East Association to develop long-term strategic relationships between the emerging economic powers in the Persian Gulf and the world’s leading international financial center, the City of London.
Key themes of this year’s conference, which will be addressed by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, John Stuttard, and a number of high profile speakers from London and the Persian Gulf states, are market regulation and corporate governance, capital and private equity markets, Islamic finance and PGCC investment flows and the role of the City of London, Tradearabia reported.
The conference presents an unprecedented opportunity for representatives from the Persian Gulf states and the international financial community to network and discuss the evolving role of the Arab region in international finance and to develop mutually beneficial relationships.