Australian police yesterday said they are investigating reports of dozens of cases of needles embedded in strawberries and other fruits, and warned that those responsible could be jailed for 10 years.
The issue is fast turning into one of Australia’s biggest-ever food scares that has halted exports to New Zealand and forced at least one strawberry farm to start dumping its fruit at the peak of the season. Another farm is installing metal detectors, media reported.
The needles, originally found in strawberries produced from one supplier in the northern state of Queensland, are now turning up around the country.
Photo: Reuters / Queensland Police
Police in New South Wales (NSW) said needles had been found in more than 20 strawberry punnets, and there were reports that a banana and apple also had needles in them.
Police in other states are also investigating reports of similar sabotage, although they have not given details on the number of complaints.
“Any incidents of self-contamination or copycat incidents impact on the industry and are very unhelpful for authorities,” NSW Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty told reporters in Sydney. “They will be treated as contamination, which is a serious offense and carries 10 years in jail.”
One person has told media he sustained minor mouth injuries after biting on a strawberry with a needle embedded in it.
Previous contamination cases in Australia have led to arrests, but not convictions.
In 2000, a man was accused of lacing paracetamol tablets with strychnine, prompting the tablets to be recalled nationwide. The suspect died in jail before being tried.
In 2006, a case against a woman accused of contaminating salads at Sizzler restaurants with rat poison was deemed mentally unfit for trial.
The strawberry industry is worth A$160 million (US$115.2 million), according to the sector.
Both of New Zealand’s biggest supermarkets have halted Australian strawberry orders.
Australian police said they had yet to identify a suspect or a motive.
While six brands have been directly affected and withdrawn from sale, consumers have begun to shun the fruit altogether.
Queensland, the nation’s largest strawberry-producing region, is particularly vulnerable to a sustained downturn in the market.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the government would set aside A$1 million to help farmers survive the season.
The state government is offering a A$100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for the sabotage.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to