12A WORLD NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DARY KANSAN
THURSDAY MAY 10, 2007
FOOD SAFETY
China starts crackdown Country faces criticism after pet food scare
BY CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SHANGHAI, China — China vowed Wednesday to crack down on contaminated and sometimes deadly food and drugs after a string of sensational revelations about the safety of Chinese products.
The campaign followed an announcement that authorities had detained managers from two companies linked to contaminated pet food that killed dogs and cats in the United States and Canada.
State media, meanwhile, said the country's disgraced former top drug regulator would go on trial this month on charges of taking bribes to approve untested medicine.
China has long suffered adverse publicity tied to its notoriously lax enforcement of food and drug safety, but the present round has been especially worrying.
China faces criticism from the United States and European Union for what they contend are unfair trade practices, and tainted food scandals could lead to bans on food products that would put Chinese farmers under even greater strain.
Already this year, Mississippi and Alabama have banned catfish from China after tests found ciprofloxacin and enrofloxacin, antibiotics banned for use in the United States. Louisiana officials said Monday they would begin testing Chinese seafood for the antibiotics.
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RELIGIOUS LEADERS
Pope admonishes Mexico's abortion law
BY VICTOR L. SIMPSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAO PAULO, Brazil — Pope Benedict XVI began his first trip to Latin America Wednesday by laying down church law on abortion, suggesting that he agrees with bishops who said Catholic politicians in Mexico had excommunicated themselves by legalizing abortion in that nation's capital.
Benedict, who will inaugurate an important regional bishops' conference during his trip, also spoke strongly against abortion during his first speech in Brazil. Speaking in Portuguese, he said he's certain that the bishops will reinforce "the
promotion of respect for life from the moment of conception until natural death as an integral requirement of human nature."
Hundreds of faithful waiting in the cold rain for a glimpse of
Benedict's spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, later said he wasn't aware that the pope was setting down a new policy.
In a statement approved by the pope, Lombardi said the pontiff did not intend to formally excommunicate anyone — a separate and rare process under church law. "Since excommunication hasn't been declared by the Mexican bishops, the pope has no intention himself of declaring it," said Lombardi, who was on board the plane.
But Lombardi said politicians who vote in favor of abortion should not receive the sacrament of Holy Communion. "Legislative action in favor of abortion is incompatible
LETICIA QUEZADA Leftist Mexico City lawmaker
"I'm Catholic and I'm going to continue being Catholic even if the church excommunicates me. My conscience is clean."
"It's nothing new, it's normal, it wasn't arbitrary. It is what is foreseen by the church's doctrine." Benedict told reporters aboard a plane to Brazil in his first full-fledged news conference since becoming pontiff in 2005.
Benedict seemed not to care about the major challenges the Vatican says he hopes to confront during his visit, such as the church's declining influence in Brazil, the rise of evangelism, or his in-flight comments about Mexico City's politicians.
Catholic officials have been debating for some time whether politicians who approve abortion legislation as well as doctors and nurses who take part in abortions would subject themselves to automatic excommunication under church law. The pope seemed to agree with Mexico City's bishops who declared that the city's pro-abortion lawmakers had excommicated themselves.
Silvia Izquierdo/ASSOCIATED PRESS
with participation in the Eucharist . . . Politicians exclude themselves from Communion."
Pressed further by journalists if the lawmakers were excommunicated, Lombardi reiterated: "No, they exclude themselves from Communion."
Pope Benedict XVI descends from a plane after arriving in Sao Paulo on Wednesday in his first trip as pontiff to Latin America. During the flight, the pope discussed excommunicating leftist Mexican politicians.
Excommunication is the severest penalty the Roman Catholic Church can impose on its members. When someone is excommunicated "his status before the church is that of a stranger," the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia says. In practical terms, that means the excommunicated person is forbidden from receiving the sacraments and participating in public worship.
Church teaching says anyone who has an abortion is automatically excommunicated. "Being a conspiring or necessary accomplice" to an abortion also means excommunication under church law.
The Mexican politicians who supported the measure shrugged off Benedict's comments Wednesday. "I'm Catholic and I'm going to continue being Catholic even if the church excommunicates me," said leftist Mexico City lawmaker Leticia
Quezada. "My conscience is clean."
Before leaving Rome, Benedict said the exodus of Catholics for evangelical Protestant churches in Latin America was "our biggest worry."
But he said the spread of Protestantism shows a "thirst for God" in the region, and that he intends to lay down a strategy to
answer that call when he meets with bishops from throughout Latin America in a once-a-decade meeting in the shrine city of Aparecida near Sao Paulo.
"We have to become more dynamic," he said. Evangelical churches, which the Vatican considers "sects," have attracted millions of Latin American Catholics in recent years.