Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Liu Chien-kuo (劉建國) said yesterday that Wei Ying-chun (魏應充), who previously led Ting Hsin Oil and Fat Industrial Co (頂新製油實業) and other subsidiaries that have prompted a nationwide boycott of the group’s products over what people see as the group’s constant disrespect of food safety standards, participated in biannual meetings on food and medication safety held by the Executive Yuan.
Liu harshly criticized Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) during yesterday’s legislative question-and-answer session for the government’s handling of the food scandal and called Jiang “the person most in need of detention.”
Responding to Liu’s concerns about the government’s resolve and action on “defusing the [food safety crisis] bomb,” Jiang said that so far, there are 13 prosecutors’ offices investigating the case, which is of an unprecedented scale, but the speed of the investigation is not something he could change.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
Jiang said that in addition to prosecutors, the Ministry of Health and Welfare has been working closely with local governments, and agencies such as the Environmental Protection Administration, the Council of Agriculture and the Ministry of Finance have all contributed to the inquiry.
However, Jiang said he was not aware that Wei participated in the Executive Yuan’s food and medication safety meeting when Liu criticized what he described as Jiang’s lack of vigilance during terms as premier and vice premier, when several such meetings have been called.
Liu said Wei had sent his counsel or secretary to attend the meetings during his term as a member and asked Jiang whether this kind of meeting was to achieve anything.
“[I doubt] a food safety meeting with ‘black-hearted’ food manufacturers could be effective, even if it had been held nine or 10 times,” he added.
The Executive Yuan later responded with a statement saying that Wei’s two-year participation ended in August last year, adding that he was appointed by then-premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義).
Wei was recommended by the then-Department of Health to attend the meeting in his capacity as the president of the Taiwan Food GMP Development Association, according to the Executive Yuan. “Wei attended only one of the four meetings held during his term and had presented his opinions on the use and management of PVC food containers,” it said.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
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