FOOD
Worries over staple prices
The Consumer’s Foundation today plans to ask the Fair Trade Commission to publicly announce increases in the price of staples, foundation chairwoman Joann Su (蘇錦霞) said yesterday. The foundation will make the request during a call on the commission to inquire about its efforts to monitor prices. Su said the group was most concerned about mid and upstream increases in the price of such staples as wheat, flour and sugar. Given that international staple prices are rising, many people nationwide are concerned that local prices will follow suit. The UN said earlier this month that the price of agricultural goods last month climbed to a record high.
SCIENCE
More science papers written
A total of 24,305 scientific research papers from Taiwan were listed in the Science Citation Index in 2009, ranking 16th in the world and representing an improvement of 7.8 percent on the previous year, Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics officials said at the weekend. A total of 18,869 papers were also published cited by major engineering publications in 2009, up 7.9 percent year-on-year and ranking ninth on the global engineering index, officials said citing tallies from the National Science Council. Meanwhile, a total of 6,642 patent applications filed by Taiwanese institutions or individuals in the US were approved in 2009, making Taiwan the fifth-largest recipient of US patents for that year, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Intellectual Property Office. Officials said Taiwan ranked behind only the US, Japan, Germany and South Korea in patent right claims in the US in 2009, representing an increase of 4.8 percent over the previous year.
FOOD
Tainted ‘tang yuan’ found
Consumers are encouraged to buy pre-packaged tang yuan (glutinous rice balls) instead of loose ones, because of food safety issues, the Taipei City Government said yesterday ahead of the Lantern Festival, when people traditionally eat the rice balls in a sweet broth. The city government offered the advice after a preservative called dehydroacetic acid was detected in non-packaged glutinous rice balls sold by two vendors in Neihu District (內湖) during a random inspection, the city’s Department of Health said. “The tainted products were pulled off the market and destroyed,” Food and Drug Division acting-chief Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美) said. The makers of the rice balls would be fined between NT$30,000 and NT$150,000, in accordance with the Food Hygiene Management Act (食品衛生管理法), she added. All 50 of the packaged rice ball products checked for artificial coloring, preservatives and proper labeling met national food safety standards, she said. Health regulations permit the use of dehydroacetic acid, a tasteless preservative, in cheese and artificial butter at a level below 0.5 grams per kilogram, “but not in tang yuan,” she said. Tang yuan come in various sizes, with or without a filling and can be sweet or savory. The round shape symbolizes togetherness and the dish is thus considered appropriate for family celebrations during Lantern Festival. Although chemical substances like dehyroacetic acid make tang yuan tastier and keep them fresh for a longer period of time, a chronic overdose could impair the functions of the liver and kidneys, Chiang said. “We were shocked to find the preservative in our random inspection, because we have been promoting a ban on dehyroacetic acid for years,” she said.
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