The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday urged Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Wen-ta (邱文達) to keep his promise that tainted oil products would be completely removed from the market beginning today.
“Chiu pledged on Oct. 24 that Nov. 8 would be ‘D-Day,’ with all tainted oil products removed from the market. If he has failed to deliver on that promise, we urge him to step down,” DPP spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) told a press conference.
Government officials have to be held accountable for their inability to control the snowballing food safety concerns and address the public’s fear over illegal, mislabeled and tainted products, the spokesperson said.
Wholesalers across the country have become the latest victims as they had to unconditionally accept returned merchandise and refund consumers without guaranteed payment from upstream manufacturers, Lin said.
“It’s imperative to boost consumer confidence with immediate and effective measures,” Lin said.
In other news, the DPP said the party does not encourage its supporters to attend the planned shoe-throwing protest, organized by various groups, at the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) congress in Greater Taichung on Sunday.
“The DPP does not encourage its supporters to attend the event, nor would the party help mobilize protesters for this activity,” Lin said.
Protesters plan to throw the thousands of shoes they said they have collected at President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) outside the venue of the party congress to express their anger at the president.
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