Offenses against the Veterinary Drugs Control Act (動物用藥品管理法) will be subject to harsher penalties if a package of proposed amendments is passed by the legislature, an animal health official said on Saturday.
Yeh Ying (
Even though the US and other countries allow ractopamine to be used as a feed additive to boost the growth of lean meat in pigs, the Council of Agriculture has no plan to lift its ban on the drug, Yeh said.
Yeh said the bureau had already tightened enforcement of the law, noting that it began requiring livestock and poultry inspectors to do hair tests for ractopamine residue as of July 1.
The bureau has also asked the courts to adopt a stricter attitude toward the use, import, manufacture and marketing of banned drugs.
Yeh's comments come in the wake of a scandal about traces of ractopamine found in two shipments of imported US pork and some samples of local pork and goose meat. Police and customs officers seized a large amount of raw materials used for production of ractopamine in raids around the country last week.
At present those who feed ractopamine to pigs or poultry can be fined between NT$6,000 and NT$30,000. The proposed amendments would raise the fines to between NT$30,000 and NT$150,000. In addition, the bureau wants the prison terms for importers and manufacturers of the banned drug increased from no more than three years to between three years and seven years, plus a fine of NT$900,000, while the penalty for dealers or distributors would be raised from a maximum of two years to a maximum of three years plus a fine of NT$900,000.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching