China's quality watchdog, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), said on February 1 that it had conducted tests on samples of the two batches of frozen dumplings, which were allegedly behind a number of poisoning cases in Japan, and no trace of pesticide remains were found.

At least 10 people in Japan's Hyogo and Chiba prefectures reported stomachache, vomiting or diarrhea after eating the dumplings, according to Japanese media.

The Japanese Government had examined the vomit of the poisoned people and the food packages left at their houses, finding enough methamidophos, a pesticide substance, to poison humans. However, tests by Japanese authorities on the rest of the dumplings of the same batches sold in Japan, totaling more than 2,000 packs, were safe, said Wang Daning, a senior official with AQSIQ.

AQSIQ has demanded that the producer of the dumplings, the Tian Yang Food Plant in north China's Hebei Province, recall all products in and on the way to Japan immediately.

Narrowing Urban-Rural Gap

Chen Xiwen, Director of the Office of the Central Leading Group on Rural Work, told a January 31 press conference that China would keep increasing investment in the countryside to seek coordinated development of urban and rural economies.

The government would expand its agricultural budget and channel its revenues from land-use charges and arable land occupation tax to rural areas, he said. Local governments would also set aside part of their city construction budgets for rural areas. This fresh move is expected to enable industry to promote agriculture and urban areas to help rural ones as agriculture remains the weakest link in the national economy.

The Central Government was likely to raise its 2008 rural budget to a record high of 520 billion yuan ($72.2 billion), compared with last year's 392 billion yuan ($54.4 billion), he said.

Beijing's Second Airport on Paper

Beijing is expected to put a second international airport into use around 2015 to ease traffic pressure, a top official with China's aviation watchdog said.

The present airport will see its passenger flow exceed 60 million people in 2008, seven years earlier than anticipated, said Yang Guoqing, Vice Minister of the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China.

The administration had submitted a report to the Central Government on the selection of a site for a second international airport in Beijing, which was still undecided, said Yang. He said that the selection process was complicated, involving the distribution of airspace and passenger flows, regional economic development and the environment.

Family Reunions Given Up

Sixty percent of migrant workers in the southern province of Guangdong chose to stay there during the Spring Festival rather than return home due to concern over heavy snow, according to local officials on February 1.

Statistics from local labor and security departments show that 11.2 million migrant workers out of a total of 19 million decided to stay. The number grew by 1.3 million during the past three days.

Migrant workers had been advised to stay in many of the cities and provinces where they work, such as Beijing, Zhejiang and Guangdong, as their holiday journeys were hampered by unusually heavy snow and freezing rain. The weather had wreaked chaos on transport systems and other areas of the economy.

Prudent Export of Drugs

In an attempt to step up control over drug exports, China will adopt a system of licenses and registration. The system was being tried on exports of 10 categories of drugs, Shao Mingli, Director of the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), told a national food and drug conference.

The new system will cover pharmaceutical agents, materials that are directly used in manufacturing these agents, and ancillary materials qualified for pharmaceutical production. Manufacturers of listed categories must get an official license and the drugs they make must be registered. Exporters of listed drugs must have official qualifications and written export approval from the authorities.