The ban on poultry imports from Japan has remained in force since January last year, a Council of Agriculture official in charge of animal quarantine and inspection affairs said yesterday.
The official made the remarks after the Japanese government announced over the weekend that bird flu has been detected in chickens at a farm in northeastern Japan and that restrictions have been imposed on shipments of poultry and eggs from the area.
"We have enforced a ban on Japanese poultry imports since H5N1 bird flu infections were confirmed in that country in January 2004," the official said, adding that the ban has not once been lifted since that time.
Amid reports of new bird flu infections in Japan, the council will heighten its alert and step up inspection and quarantine measures to avert any avian flu-infected poultry from entering the country, the official said.
The Japanese government said Sunday that more than 800 chickens at a farm in Mitsukaido City in Ibaraki Prefecture, located just northeast of Tokyo, have died since April, and recent tests on some found they were infected with the H5N2 strain of bird flu.
H5N2 is regarded as less dangerous strain of the bird flu virus compared to the H5N1 strain, which has led to the death and slaughter of tens of millions of birds across Asia since late 2003. The H5N1 strain has also crossed over to humans, killing 38 people in Vietnam, 12 in Thailand and four in Cambodia over the past couple of years.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do