Provincial officials have ordered police and government safety and commerce departments to conduct a “thorough overhaul” of all fireworks factories in the province, Xinhua said. It gave no details and did not say when the factories would be allowed to restart production.

The factory’s manager, Qu Pingxin, initially fled before turning himself in to authorities on Saturday, Xinhua said.

Pucheng county is a traditional base for the industry in the province, employing 30,000 people and producing 300 million yuan ($44 million) worth of fireworks last year, Xinhua said.

Six workers died Sunday when the highway overpass they were building in Yunnan province collapsed, a further example of the human cost of China’s breakneck drive for development. The overpass is part of a massive new airport complex in the provincial capital, Kunming.

Also on the domestic to-do-list are the President’s first budget and State of the Union address. No date has been set for the speech, though it is expected to be at the end of the month. Mr. Obama held several budget meetings towards the end of 2009 as he works through agency budget requests and potential cuts ahead of the February deadline. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs wouldn’t hint at what would be (or not be) in the President’s budget, but he said, “suffice to say, that it will not look as it has in the past.”

Internationally, Mr. Obama, along with allies in the P5+1 group, have to deal with Iran’s refusal to meet its year-end deadline to exchange its enriched uranium for nuclear fuel. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs alluded to possible action against Iran as the deadline loomed in the last week of December, “The decision for them to live up to their responsibilities is their decision. We have offered them a different path. If they decide not to take it, then our delegation, with the P-5-plus-1, will move accordingly,” Gibbs said. Experts believe the passing of the deadline could be a turning point for the Obama Administration’s stance toward Tehran.

“The President and US allies are going to have to talk about sanctions and other methods for trying to get the regime in Iran to move on this issue,” says Jim Robbins of the American Foreign Policy Council.

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