HEALTH
No tainted food found: FDA
No aquatic products from contaminated waters in the Pearl River estuary in Guangdong Province, China, have been imported into Taiwan, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. The FDA issued the statement amid reports that high volumes of heavy metals and organic chemicals had been found in the Pearl River, leading to excessive amounts of lead, chromium and cadmium being detected in aquatic products from the region. Citing customs statistics, the statement said that 70 percent to 80 percent of the nation’s aquatic imports from China — mainly shrimp meat, fish cream and crab meat — come from Dongshan, Fujian Province. None of those products have been found to contain excessive levels of heavy metals or other pollutants, it added.
AGRICULTURE
MOF censured over millet
The Control Yuan yesterday censured the Ministry of Finance (MOF) for failing to supervise millet-based products. The government watchdog said that although more than 60 percent of so-called millet products on the market are brewed from glutinous rice or a mixture of other types of rice, they are all marketed as being millet-based. Control Yuan member Cheng Jen-hung (程仁宏) said there are 24 companies registered with tax authorities as producers of millet wine — the main product derived from the cereal crop. Among the 79 wines marketed as millet wine, only 28 are actually produced from millet. Of the falsely labeled wines, one is made from glutinous rice and the remaining 50 are produced from a mixture of glutinous rice, white rice and other kinds of rice, although 47 of them are labeled as millet-based wine.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai