The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Friday called on several Asian countries including Taiwan to lift their bans on beef imports from the US, after South Korea agreed to partially re-open its market to US beef.
The agreement will allow the US to export boneless beef from cattle less than 30 months of age to South Korea. The progress came in the wake of similar steps taken by Japan and Hong Kong.
"As we continue discussions with Korea, I urge Thailand, China, Taiwan, Singapore and others to comply with science-based international guidelines and reopen their markets to US beef," said Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns.
More than 40 countries including Taiwan banned beef imports from the US in December 2003 after the discovery in Washington State of a single case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease.
In April last year, Taiwan lifted the ban on US boneless beef from animals under 30 months of age, but again suspended US beef imports on June 25 that same year after a second case of mad cow disease was confirmed in the US earlier that month.
Taiwan's Legislative Yuan adopted on Thursday a non-binding resolution setting the conditions under which the import of US beef could be resumed.
These conditions include that the government should draw up a consumer-protection plan, that the US should provide biodata for its food exports and that the government should send officials to the US to monitor US management of cattle for export to ensure that beef from the US is absolutely safe and that no new cases of mad cow disease have appeared since June last year.
Taiwan annually imported some US$325 million of US beef products, making it the sixth largest market for the US before the ban was imposed. Japan and South Korea were the largest and third-largest markets, respectively.
So far, the US has recovered access to foreign markets valued at more than US$3.2 billion, or 82 percent of the 2003 export value for US beef of US$3.9 billion, according to tallies from the USDA.
Also see story:
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the