Dead pigs show dark side of China food industry

Dead pigs collected by sanitation workers in Shanghai Thousands of dead pigs in a Shanghai river have cast a spotlight on China's poorly regulated farm production, with the country's favourite meat joining a long list of food scares. As of Friday, the number of carcasses recovered in recent days from the Huangpu river -- which cuts through the commercial hub and supplies over 20 percent of its drinking water -- had reached more than 7,500.
Shanghai has blamed the farmers of Jiaxing in neighbouring Zhejiang province for casting pigs thought to have died of disease into the river upstream, but officials from the area have admitted to only a single producer doing so.
The city has stepped up inspections of markets to stop meat from the dead animals from reaching dining tables of its 23 million people.
From recycled cooking oil to dangerous chemicals in baby milk powder, a series of food scandals in China has caused huge public concern.
Pork is king in China, accounting for 64 percent of total meat output last year, and urban residents with growing wallets and waistlines ate 20.63 kilograms (45 pounds) of the meat per person in 2011.
Images of Shanghai's dead pigs have hit the nation's collective gut, but in Zhulin village, a major hog-raising centre in Jiaxing, the farmers claim their innocence in the scandal.
"The government is very strict. We give our pigs vaccinations. If they are sick, they can't be sold," said Pan Juying, 57, as she hoisted two baskets of freshly cut grass to feed her eight pigs.
But a bloated piglet lying by the roadside a hundred metres (yards) away from a stream showed that not all dead animals are properly disposed of.
Wang Wei, a veterinarian for the Hengyuan Company which produces medicines for farm animals, said a large number of pigs died from unknown causes in Zhejiang just before and after the Chinese Lunar New Year in February.
"It must have been a big pig farm" that was responsible for events in Shanghai, he said in Zhulin's main street, which is lined with animal medicine and feed stores. "They can't control an outbreak of infectious disease."
Despite laws against the practice, animals that die from disease in China can end up in the food supply chain or improperly disposed of.
In Wenling, also in Zhejiang, authorities announced this week that 46 people had been jailed for up to six-and-a-half years for processing and selling pork from more than 1,000 diseased pigs.
China was rocked by one of its biggest-ever food safety scandals in 2008 when the industrial chemical melamine was found to have been illegally added to dairy products, killing at least six babies and making 300,000 people ill.
Across China, cheap recycled cooking oil is available made illegally from leftovers scooped out of restaurant drains. Amid public disgust authorities arrested more than 30 people over its sale, but it remains commonplace.
In another recent incident, US fast food giant KFC was hit by controversy after revealing some Chinese suppliers provided chicken with high levels of antibiotics, in what appeared to be an industry-wide practice.
Zhu Yi, a professor at China Agricultural University, said that the country's vast number of small-scale farmers were "hard to supervise and regulate".
"Food safety is an issue that requires continuous efforts, you simply cannot put everything right once and for all," she said. "The current livestock breeding model is too crude, and the standards too low."
But large-scale production also carried risks of its own, she added.
"Every country has its own problems," she said. "The highly industrialised European Union was caught up by the horse meat scandal.
Israeli intelligence claims that Iran and "Hezbollah" are building an army to support Assad
They Accuses the Revolutionary Guards of controlling the ongoing military operations in Damascus
Jerusalem - Nasser Al-Assaad
Gen. Aviv Kochavi, the IDF's director of military intelligence accused Iran and "Hezbollah" of forming a force of 50 thousand soldiers, to prolong the Syrian government rule in Damascus, as well as to maintain their influence in Syria in case President Bashar al-Assad regime fell down.
Kochavi, added that "Iran intends to double the size of these forces  , who are trained at the hands of Hezbollah fighters with funding coming from the Iranian government in Tehran. The new forces will support the Syrian army, which suffers from exhaustion and frustration.
He warned of "the growing number of extremists inside the Syrian opposition, especially (the Front victory), which allegedly trying to sneak into Lebanon and establish relations and contacts with the military organization (Jerusalem supporters) which resides in the Sinai Peninsula, and focuses on attacking Israel. "
Western governments and Israel accuse leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards of giving consults to generals of Assad Army , and "Hezbollah" of fighting alongside the Syrian forces. While Israeli officials say that the commander of "Qods Force" in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Soleimani, is in Damascus to oversee military operations.
Kochavi claimed in a speech before a security conference in the city of Herzliya in Israel, on Thursday, that Iran since last June is using "Hezbollah" in "building a huge Syria militia, and that this militia would be subject to Iran militia if Assad regime fell .
He added that both Iran and Hezbollah are supporting Assad by providing strategic advice , intelligence, and weapons.
The International Institute of Strategic Studies issued a report, Wednesday, in which it said that the Syrian army can only rely on 50 thousand of its 220 thousand troops, while the Institute of War Studies in Washington estimated that the current force of the Syrian army is 65 thousand troops.
Israel focuses its attention on preventing the transmission of Syrian inventory of chemical weapons, advanced anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles to Lebanon, officials in Israel say that they "are in close cooperation with the CIA in this context."
Senior official in the Israeli army says that "Hezbollah" already has about 50 thousand rockets of various range and several thousand of these rockets can reach Tel Aviv, leading the Israeli army to invade southern Lebanon.
He added that Hezbollah gives fighter in the villages across southern Lebanon three floors houses to stores these missiles stressing that that any war in the future would require Israel to bomb those houses.
"It will be ugly and horrible war." He concluded.