Israel has one of the best armies in the Middle East, one of the best trained, and superbly successful. This is an army that has won all the wars that they have had with a number of their neighbours attacking together, starting from the war in 1948 to 1967 and then 1973. In most cases, the win was a decisive win, with Israel taking territory and then returning some of these later as part of peace accords. And it is this territory that is now causing problems. Under their belief system, hardline Jews believe that the territory of the Middle East west of the Jordan river has been given to them by God, a greater Israel. This includes the lands of the West Bank. As a sign of this, there are many Jewish settlers living amongst a midst of Palestinians, with the Israeli army being the only one able to provide security. However, from time to time, the Israelis have been forced to remove Jewish families who occupy Palestinian homes. And this is where the trouble starts. It takes a lot of force for the army to remove these settlers, who are convinced that it is their religious right and duty to live there. What the Israeli army is finding that more and more soldiers are being swayed by religious thought and unwilling to obey orders about removing these settlers:

continue reading "Israel’s problem soldiers"

It’s been a problem now for some time; toys and other stuff imported from China are turning up in large quantities to be contaminated in some way or the other. The latest issue is about toys sold by Mattel that is contaminated and had to be recalled, causing a severe worry to parents and causing a large revenue drop to Mattel (which is now looking for new vendors outside China). This was even more problematic since Mattel had a good reputation for quality, not something that they can claim now. From further investigations carried out by assorted media, as long as the low cost manufacturing in China story runs, it is impossible to handle such quality problems by inspections in the US; quality can only be built, something that China needs to move much faster:

continue reading "China and the lead paint issue"

China has been suffering a public relations nightmare over the quality of its products. Quality of food, pet food, toys, toothbrush, etc have all been depicted as suffering from quality issues. Over this, the media has done investigation in China and come out with reports about the bad condition of quality control in China, further scaring people. China has claimed to be taking some tough measures, including sentencing a former head of a drugs inspection agency to death for corruption. It has also gone on the offensive in terms of claiming that these issues are being over-blown. At this time, this was the last thing that China needed to hear:

Mattel Inc., the world’s largest toymaker, said a recall of 1.5 million Chinese-made products will reduce second-quarter operating income by almost 50 percent and that it will review the production methods of all its contractors in China.
The lead discovery might force Mattel to find new sources of low-cost goods and may further damage China’s reputation as an exporter, following a recall of “Thomas & Friends” toys in Asia, a U.S. ban on Chinese toothpaste and scandals involving tainted cooking oil and diseased pork. The company is recalling 967,000 preschool toys sold in U.S. stores since May, including Elmo’s Guitar, Dora’s Talking House and 81 other products, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said yesterday.

continue reading "More trouble for China as Mattel recalls toys"