China milk scandal hits Japan firm, Taiwan victims

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BEIJING, Sept 26 (AFP): China's tainted milk scandal continues to expand beyond its borders as three Taiwanese children and a mother are sick with kidney stones, a Japanese confectioner's cookies are found to be contaminated and the European Union joins other countries in banning imports of baby food containing Chinese milk.
Liu Yi-lien, health chief of the Ilan County government in eastern Taiwan, says the two 3-year-old girls and a one-year-old boy all have been traveling frequently between Taiwan and China with their parents. One of the children's mothers also has kidney stones.
If a link is established between these kidney problems and melamine-tainted milk, they would be the first such cases diagnosed outside of China or its territories of Hong Kong and Macau since the contaminated milk scandal erupted this month.
Meanwhile, Koala's March cookies made by Lotte China Foods Co., a Tokyo conglomerate, were found to be contaminated with the toxic chemical melamine. The Japanese confectioner exports cookies to the Chinese territory of Macau
Macau's government said late Thursday that they had found levels of melamine 24 times the safety limit in the cookies.
An official at Lotte (China) Investment Co. Ltd. in Shanghai said Friday that previous inspections had not shown any problems.