Two beef wholesalers that were found to have pumped water into cattle carcasses to increase the weight of the beef are to face a fine of NT$150,000 each, while whether they made other illegal profits is to be further investigated by prosecutors, the Council of Agriculture said yesterday.
The council’s Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine said that after talking on Friday with the owners of the Fubo Slaughterhouse — where the illegal practice was witnessed — and beef wholesalers Shang Hao (上豪) and Shun Fa (順發) — who allegedly performed the water pumping — the bureau decided to fine the two companies for one case each, in line with the Animal Industry Act (畜牧法).
The Chinese-language Apple Daily reported that its reporters on four occasions witnessed workers allegedly pumping water into carcasses, but the bureau said it can only confirm two clear cases from the video filmed by the paper.
Measures will be enforced to ensure the nation’s meat safety, including increased inspections and surveillance camera monitoring, the bureau said, having officials make inspections without warning, enhancing training for inspectors, asking slaughterhouses to install surveillance cameras, with laws to enforce heavier punishments.
According to Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan director Chen Yu-ming (陳玉敏), the council spent about NT$380 million on meat inspections each year, including recruiting 580 inspectors and surveillance camera maintenance in slaughterhouses since 2012.
A further NT$65 million was spent subsidizing the nation’s beef industry between 2007 and 2011, and 283 inspections have been made since illegal practices at Fubo Slaughterhouse were reported two years ago. Yet the group said companies and inspectors still do not value animal welfare and meat safety.
Chen questioned whether the monitoring system malfunctioned, because it “could not see” the illegal practices, with the government instead relying on civic groups or the media to uncover the incidents.
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