FOOD SAFETY
Tainted sprouts seized
More than 2 tonnes of tainted bean sprouts have been seized from two factories in New Taipei City and destroyed because they were found to contain traces of an unapproved chemical additive, the city’s Department of Health said on Friday. A total of 2,193.6kg of bean sprouts were seized from two factories operating in the city’s Taishan (泰山) and Wugu (五股) districts during an inspection carried out by health authorities. The health department said samples taken from the Taishan factory were found to contain 0.036g of sodium sulfite per kilogram of bean sprouts, while samples from Wugu had 0.04g/kg of the substance. Although the chemical preservative is sometimes used by manufacturers to prevent food from discoloring, it is banned in bean sprouts. The companies could face fines of between NT$30,000 and NT$3 million (US$990 and US$99,003) for violating the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法).
FINANCE
Workers struggle with bills
The majority of office workers in Taiwan can hardly make ends meet, with housing being their main expense, a recent survey by online job broker 1111 Job Bank. In the survey, more than 95 percent of office workers said that their salaries were not enough to cover basic living expenses. More than 56 percent of respondents said housing accounted for the largest share of their expenditure, while 27 percent said they spent most of their income on food, and 4.76 percent said entertainment was their biggest expense. To save money, workers said they avoid shopping (76 percent), reduce their electricity consumption (73 percent), go to work by motorcycle (65 percent), stream movies online (57 percent) and avoiding eating out (53 percent). The survey was conducted from July 10 to Thursday with 1,072 job bank members. It had a margin of error of 2.99 percentage points.
IMMIGRATION
Immigrant center launched
Taoyuan this week opened a center providing services to new immigrants and migrant workers in the city in an effort to improve services. Citing National Immigration Agency data, Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) said there are about 57,000 new immigrants in the city, accounting for 11 percent of the total nationwide. The Taoyuan New Immigrants Joint Services Center is an example of the efforts made by the local government to better serve new immigrants in Taoyuan, most of whom come from China, Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand, Cheng said. The city government’s commission for new immigrant affairs initiated the plan for the joint services center, Cheng said.
SOCIETY
Man dies after ravine fall
A 33-year-old climber was killed yesterday after he fell into a ravine in Hualien County while his climbing team was rushing to leave the area before Typhoon Nesat’s arrival. The man, surnamed Huang (黃), was exiting the mountains from Shueiyuandi’s (水源地) Shapotang Stream (砂婆礑溪) in Hualien’s Siulin Township (秀林) at 7am yesterday when he fell, Hualien police said. Huang was dead when rescue workers found him at the bottom of the ravine, Hualien County Fire Department officials said. The climbing team of 22 people on Saturday last week entered the mountains to climb the east face of Qilai Mountain, police said. Nesat, the ninth storm to develop in the Pacific Ocean this year, made landfall in Yilan last night.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard