HEALTH
Tainted beans found: group
The Consumers’ Foundation yesterday said that pesticide residues exceeded allowable limits in three of 60 agricultural products it recently tested. Among the three cases it tested, black beans sold in a Greater Kaohsiung store were the most seriously contaminated, containing 0.14 parts per million (ppm) of fipronil — more than 100 times the legal limit. The other cases involved red beans sold in stores in Greater Taichung and Greater Kaohsiung that contained such pesticides as imidacloprid and carbofuran. The Council of Agriculture has barred the use of carbofuran on red beans. The EU has banned the pesticides until next year amid concerns that they contribute to colony collapse disorder among honeybees. The council said that 80 percent of Taiwan’s red beans are imported. The vast majority of soybeans and black beans are imported, while green beans are also mostly imported, it added.
DIPLOMACY
Birthday ball for the queen
The British office in Taiwan is gearing up to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s 88th birthday with a party set for tomorrow. The celebration in Taipei is to be hosted British Trade and Cultural Office Director Chris Wood. The office said the event would include screenings of several short videos to introduce different aspects of the UK, including Sounds of Great Britain, UK — Your Destination for Investment and Romeo & Juliet as presented by the Royal Ballet. Meanwhile, a series of local events to mark the 450th birth anniversary of William Shakespeare are also set for this year as part of global celebrations of the bard and his legacy, Wood said. Planned festivities include a staging of Romeo and Juliet by the Royal Ballet at Taipei’s National Theater later this month, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in October.
DIPLOMACY
Burkina Faso official visiting
Burkinabe Foreign Minister Djibril Bassole is in Taipei to discuss bilateral cooperation projects for the coming two years, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. Bassole and Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) are co-hosting the 10th meeting of the Taiwan-Burkina Faso bilateral cooperation commission, which opens in Taipei today, the ministry said. The two-day meeting will focus on cooperation in the areas of vocational training, agriculture, medicine and solar energy over the next two years, and will be attended by senior officials from related agencies.
CHEMISTRY
Chemist wins Italian award
A Taiwanese researcher has won an award in chemistry from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Italy, Academia Sinica announced yesterday. Peng Shie-ming (彭旭明), an academic and former vice president of Academia Sinica, was awarded the Luigi Tartufari International Prize in Chemistry along with Italian chemist Luisa de Cola, the organization said in a statement. Peng is an expert in inorganic chemistry and crystallography, and is noted for his work in the synthesis and structure of transition metal complexes, it said. Transition metal complexes have important applications in molecular electronics and magnetic materials. An award ceremony is to be held on June 26 at the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Founded in 1603 in Rome, the academy is one of the oldest scientific academies in the world and included Galileo Galilei among its first members.
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