A well-known, century-old Taipei shop that sells smoked shark meat has been cited for poor sanitation after the Taipei Department of Health yesterday conducted a surprise inspection and gave the shop three days to improve its food hygiene.
The Chinese-language Mirror Media weekly magazine reported that A Hua Smoked Shark Shop in the Dadaocheng (大稻埕) area had been preparing its food in unsanitary conditions and food samples sent for examination by the health department showed a bacterial count 22 times higher than the legal limit.
The report featured photographs secretly taken outside the shop’s kitchen that show the shop owner and workers wearing sandals and handling meat on a greasy and dirty floor.
It also reported that several mouse traps and cages were placed near the kitchen and showed a photograph with a rat stuck in a trap with the caption saying that the rat was still making noises when the photograph was taken.
The shop owner, surnamed Kuo (郭), said the store handles shark meat on cutting boards, not on the floor, and that the photograph of the rat could have been set up.
The examination of the shark meat could have been done days after it was purchased, Kuo said.
The shop owner said that the meat is cooked until it is well-done, but refused reporters access to the kitchen.
The health department said it found that the shop and its factory had many sanitation problems, including food being handled on the floor, unrefrigerated fresh ingredients and dirty floors and walls.
The shop has been asked to improve conditions before tomorrow, or it could face a fine of between NT$60,000 and NT$200 million (US$1,881 and US$6.27 million).
Department Food and Drugs Division Director Wang Ming-li (王明理) said the agency has also collected raw meat and processed meat samples for examination, adding that the results would be available in about 10 to 14 days.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift