Negotiations on a trade in goods agreement with China should be halted, protesters said yesterday, warning that food safety, and the interests of farmers and small businesses would be jeopardized if talks continue as they are.
Representatives from the Economic Democracy Union, Taiwan March and other groups gathered outside the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) to protest what they called a lack of transparency in the talks, following a meeting between MAC Minister Andrew Hsia (夏立言) and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) on Wednesday.
“The Ministry of Economic Affairs has only said that it would strive for no tariffs for four major industries, but has never stated exactly what areas China is asking us to open up,” Economic Democracy Union convener Lai Chung-chiang (賴中強) said, referring to petrochemicals, machine tools, cars and flat panels.
“Even if there is no conclusion, they should still tell us the scope of discussions, including which products are being targeted for opening up,” he said, adding that transparency was necessary to ensure that consumers, small business owners and other interest groups without strong lobbies had an opportunity to provide input.
Based on statements by government officials, the final agreement would likely include provisions on controversial issues such as reducing safety testing requirements for Chinese food products and dropping restrictions on agricultural goods, as well manufactured goods, such as textiles, plastics and steel, he said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
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