The discovery of excessive levels of the industrial chemical melamine in Chinese eggs has prompted the Hong Kong authorities to expand health tests to include meat products imported from China, a senior official said yesterday.
The move follows the announcement late on Saturday that Hong Kong testers had found 4.7 parts per million (ppm) of melamine in imported eggs produced by a division of China’s Dalian Hanwei Enterprise Group.
The legal limit for melamine in foodstuffs in Hong Kong is 2.5ppm.
Hong Kong Secretary for Food and Health York Chow (周一嶽) said the melamine may have come from feed given to the chickens that laid the eggs.
The egg results have prompted officials to expand food testing to meat imports from China, Chow told reporters yesterday.
Chow said Hong Kong officials would step up checks of eggs imported from China.
Calls to Dalian Hanwei Enterprise Group, based in the northeastern port city Dalian, went unanswered yesterday.
In an earlier egg-related food safety scare in Hong Kong and China the banned cancer-causing industrial dye, Sudan Red, was used to color egg yolks.
ONE IN FOUR
In related news, nearly one quarter of Beijing families have fed their children milk contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine, state press reported yesterday.
In an indication of the scale of the tainted milk scandal that has rocked the country, more than 74,000 of nearly 308,000 households questioned in the capital said their children were fed the products before they were taken off the shelves, the Beijing News reported.
So far at least four infants have died in China, and 53,000 sickened across the country, from drinking milk tainted with melamine.
Normally used in making plastics and glue, melamine was added to baby milk formula and other dairy products to make them appear richer in protein.
The paper did not say how many — if any — of the fatalities occurred in Beijing.
The scandal broke early last month and has badly tarnished the image of Chinese dairy products, with countries around the world banning or curtailing Chinese imports.
DELAYS
Although at least one Chinese dairy firm knew of the problem for months, it did not immediately report it to local government officials.
They in turn delayed passing on the news for nearly a month until after the Olympics in August.
Beijing News said hospitals in the capital have reported that 3,458 infants have been hospitalized with kidney stones, the main symptom of ingesting the melamine.
More than 211,000 children have had urinary tract examinations at Beijing hospitals and medical clinics since the scandal broke, it said.
China is currently considering a draft food safety law that aims to prevent any cover-ups by health authorities while making them directly responsible for approving additives in processed foods, Xinhua news agency reported.
Also See: Cyanide find prompts food recall
CHAOS: Iranians took to the streets playing celebratory music after reports of Khamenei’s death on Saturday, while mourners also gathered in Tehran yesterday Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a major attack on Iran launched by Israel and the US, throwing the future of the Islamic republic into doubt and raising the risk of regional instability. Iranian state television and the state-run IRNA news agency announced the 86-year-old’s death early yesterday. US President Donald Trump said it gave Iranians their “greatest chance” to “take back” their country. The announcements came after a joint US and Israeli aerial bombardment that targeted Iranian military and governmental sites. Trump said the “heavy and pinpoint bombing” would continue through the week or as long
TRUST: The KMT said it respected the US’ timing and considerations, and hoped it would continue to honor its commitments to helping Taiwan bolster its defenses and deterrence US President Donald Trump is delaying a multibillion-dollar arms sale to Taiwan to ensure his visit to Beijing is successful, a New York Times report said. The weapons sales package has stalled in the US Department of State, the report said, citing US officials it did not identify. The White House has told agencies not to push forward ahead of Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), it said. The two last month held a phone call to discuss trade and geopolitical flashpoints ahead of the summit. Xi raised the Taiwan issue and urged the US to handle arms sales to
BIG SPENDERS: Foreign investors bought the most Taiwan equities since 2005, signaling confidence that an AI boom would continue to benefit chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) market capitalization swelled to US$2 trillion for the first time following a 4.25 percent rally in its American depositary receipts (ADR) overnight, putting the world’s biggest contract chipmaker sixth on the list of the world’s biggest companies by market capitalization, just behind Amazon.com Inc. The site CompaniesMarketcap.com ranked TSMC ahead of Saudi Aramco and Meta Platforms Inc. The Taiwanese company’s ADRs on Tuesday surged to US$385.75 on the New York Stock Exchange, as strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications led to chip supply constraints and boost revenue growth to record-breaking levels. Each TSMC ADR represents
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday said that it had confirmed on Saturday night with its liquefied natural gas (LNG) and crude oil suppliers that shipments are proceeding as scheduled and that domestic supplies remain unaffected. The CPC yesterday announced the gasoline and diesel prices will rise by NT$0.2 and NT$0.4 per liter, respectively, starting Monday, citing Middle East tensions and blizzards in the eastern United States. CPC also iterated it has been reducing the proportion of crude oil imports from the Middle East and diversifying its supply sources in the past few years in response to geopolitical risks, expanding
RSS