The Philippine authorities have told businesses to pull questionable Taiwanese food products off store shelves and said the country would accelerate signing a memorandum on cooperation with Taiwan to strengthen food safety checks.
Amid the recycled lard oil scandal in Taiwan, Kenneth Hartigan-Go, acting director of the Philippines Food and Drug Administration, said that despite insufficient manpower, his agency is still checking whether food products using the questionable oil have made their way into the Philippines.
Hartigan-Go said his agency is asking Taiwan to provide a list of food products using the questionable oil.
If they are found to be for sale in the Philippines, they will be destroyed, he said. However, he said importers and retailers would not be punished because “they are also victims.”
He said his agency is talking with its Taiwanese counterpart to sign the memorandum on cooperation, which would allow the parties to exchange several technologies and set up a bilateral warning mechanism.
He said that after the signing of the memorandum, the two sides would be able to more effectively check food safety. However, he also said that Taiwan’s recycled oil case is only an isolated incident and that the majority of Taiwan’s food is of high quality.
Compared with food imports from Japan, South Korea, Europe and the US, imports from Taiwan are relatively small and most Filipinos have not even heard about the incident.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
Taiwan is doing everything it can to prevent a military conflict with China, including building up asymmetric defense capabilities and fortifying public resilience, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said in a recent interview. “Everything we are doing is to prevent a conflict from happening, whether it is 2027 or before that or beyond that,” Hsiao told American podcaster Shawn Ryan of the Shawn Ryan Show. She was referring to a timeline cited by several US military and intelligence officials, who said Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take military action against Taiwan
RSS