People who bring back sand or dirt as souvenirs from their trips overseas are violating the nation’s quarantine and inspection regulations, Council of Agriculture (COA) officials said.
The officials made the remarks after television host Angela Lee (李佳豫) showed off sand she had brought back from the Sahara Desert when she attended the variety show Here Comes Kang and Xi (康熙來了). In the show, she poured some of the sand onto the hands of the host and said she bottled it herself.
Fei Wen-chi (費雯綺), deputy director general of COA’s Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, said dirt imported from overseas might contain bacteria or other microorganisms that could damage the nation’s environment and agriculture. Therefore, travelers importing dirt, sand, soil or animals and plants containing them must file an application to do so.
Applicants may only secure permits to import these items after inspection and quarantine officials ascertain that they have been sterilized, she said.
Those violating the regulation are liable to be fined between NT$3,000 and NT$15,000, she said.
While travelers are not permitted to import dirt they collect overseas without special permission, Fei also said those purchasing dirt as a souvenir had to voluntarily declare it at customs.
“Even though dirt has been processed into a commodity, we can never know for sure if they [other countries] have adopted standardized procedures to sterilize it,” Fei said.
Aside from dirt, Taiwan also bans travelers from importing moon cakes and instant noodles containing meat. Inspection officials said people often bring egg rolls with shredded pork jerky when returning from Macau, with some trying to pass through customs without declaring them, at which point sniffer dogs smell them out.
“If you are not sure if you can import a certain item into the country, you had better pass through the ‘Declare’ gate and let quarantine officials determine for you,” Fei said. “If it is determined that you cannot bring the item in, just throw it away at the banned produce disposal box at customs to avoid a penalty.”
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods