Health & Safety

For those concerned with the burden on China’s environment from it being the 21st Century’s “workshop of the world”, Apple’s agreeing to the presence of external monitors during the auditing of pollution controls at a Chinese supplier’s factory comes as a welcome development. The weekend edition of the Financial Times reported that the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) has been invited to attend the inspection of a printed circuit board plant in the next few weeks.

China's Work Safety Committee has released details of the causes of some of the most recent accidents in the country's coal-mining industry, which fuels 80 percent of the country's electricity generation. The committee says it will be cracking down on the sector which barely lets a week go by without reporting fatalities or major incidents.

Scientists in China have been given government funding to discuss genetically modified (GM) crops with the public following protests against the technology. The Ministry of Agricultre made available CNY2.6 million (USD400,000) since late last year, and some communication on GM crop science has now started.

Apple Inc has publicly acknowledged for the first time that employees of a Chinese contractor were disabled from toxic hazards in the workplace.