Quarantine authorities yesterday vowed to step up border inspections in the wake of information that a batch of Canadian pork was being transshipped to Taiwan from Vietnam — a foot and mouth disease (FMD)-infected country.
The transshipment, if allowed to enter Taiwan, would seriously threaten the nation’s listing as a FMD-free country, observers said. Taiwan is currently listed by the World Organization for Animal Health as an “FMD-free country with vaccination.”
Pan Lien-chou (潘連周), president of the Swine Association, said that the 3,000 tonne shipment of fresh Canadian pork was denied entry for an unknown reason when it arrived in Vietnam around two months ago.
To reduce its losses, the Vietnamese importer sold the pork to a Taiwanese importer at a discount price, Pan said.
Watson Sun (宋華聰), director-general of the Council of Agriculture’s Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, confirmed that he had obtained information on the pork on Thursday and had also received a similar report from Pan.
“The bureau has told officials at every port of entry to carefully examine every batch of meat imported and to notify customs authorities to block any attempt to smuggle the pork into Taiwan,” he said.
Sun said that Taiwan imposes a strict ban on fresh meat imports from FMD-infected countries, including imports from FMD-free countries that have stopped over in FMD-infected countries en route to Taiwan. Officials check receipts to determine if imports have stopped in FMD-infected countries and also examine package seals to ensure they have not been tampered with, he said.
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