Following the publication of an article in a Malaysian weekly tabloid that alleged a Taiwanese restaurant served the meat of human infants, the Taiwan government has taken steps to ensure the publisher prints a retraction.
Yuan Kai-sheng (
The offending article was first made public on Wednesday by People First Party Legislator Chin Huei-chu (
The pictures were in fact part of a performance by Shanghai-based artist Zhu Yu (朱昱), entitled Man-eater (食人).
However, Perdana's news story claimed that the photos were of a Taiwanese restaurant in which human fetuses are served to customers.
Zhu has created a series of art performances entitled Infatuation on Injures (
The Chinese-language press quoted Zhu as saying during an interview on Wednesday that he intended to discuss life and death through his works.
By eating six-month-old human fetuses obtained from abortions, he posed a challenge to traditional ethics, he maintained to the press.
Born in 1970, Zhu said that he wanted to know if we could change our human culture in which we fear death and pursue eternal life.
To create Man-eater, he said he cooked the corpses of babies that had been stolen from a medical school.
Zhu admitted that the meat obtained from the bodies tasted bad, and said he had vomited several times while eating it. However, he said, he had to do so "for art's sake."
Though his works have sparked criticism, Zhu has achieved fame within China's avant-garde art circles.
In another work, Canned human brains, Zhu immersed human brains in glass jars, which also caused a stir.
GET TO SAFETY: Authorities were scrambling to evacuate nearly 700 people in Hualien County to prepare for overflow from a natural dam formed by a previous typhoon Typhoon Podul yesterday intensified and accelerated as it neared Taiwan, with the impact expected to be felt overnight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, while the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration announced that schools and government offices in most areas of southern and eastern Taiwan would be closed today. The affected regions are Tainan, Kaohsiung and Chiayi City, and Yunlin, Chiayi, Pingtung, Hualien and Taitung counties, as well as the outlying Penghu County. As of 10pm last night, the storm was about 370km east-southeast of Taitung County, moving west-northwest at 27kph, CWA data showed. With a radius of 120km, Podul is carrying maximum sustained
Tropical Storm Podul strengthened into a typhoon at 8pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with a sea warning to be issued late last night or early this morning. As of 8pm, the typhoon was 1,020km east of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving west at 23kph. The storm carried maximum sustained winds of 119kph and gusts reaching 155kph, the CWA said. Based on the tropical storm’s trajectory, a land warning could be issued any time from midday today, it added. CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said Podul is a fast-moving storm that is forecast to bring its heaviest rainfall and strongest
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday criticized the nuclear energy referendum scheduled for Saturday next week, saying that holding the plebiscite before the government can conduct safety evaluations is a denial of the public’s right to make informed decisions. Lai, who is also the chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), made the comments at the party’s Central Standing Committee meeting at its headquarters in Taipei. ‘NO’ “I will go to the ballot box on Saturday next week to cast a ‘no’ vote, as we all should do,” he said as he called on the public to reject the proposition to reactivate the decommissioned
TALKS CONTINUE: Although an agreement has not been reached with Washington, lowering the tariff from 32 percent to 20 percent is still progress, the vice premier said Taiwan would strive for a better US tariff rate in negotiations, with the goal being not just lowering the current 20-percent tariff rate, but also securing an exemption from tariff stacking, Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) said yesterday. Cheng made the remarks at a news conference at the Executive Yuan explaining the new US tariffs and the government’s plans for supporting affected industries. US President Donald Trump on July 31 announced a new tariff rate of 20 percent on Taiwan’s exports to the US starting on Thursday last week, and the Office of Trade Negotiations on Friday confirmed that it