A package of Chinese crispy sausage apparently carried by passengers on a ferry from China’s Fujian Province to Kinmen was contaminated with African Swine Fever (ASF) virus, the Council of Agriculture Deputy Minister Huang Chin-cheng (黃金城) said on Wednesday.
The sausage made by WH Group — the largest meat producer in China — was discovered on Thursday last week in a garbage can at Shuitou Port, Huang said.
It had apparently discarded by whoever brought it, and was sent for testing to the Animal Health Research Institute as part of the government’s effort to keep the ASF virus out of Taiwan, he said.
Pork and pork products from WH Group have been repeatedly found to contain the ASF virus since the disease was first reported in China on Aug. 3, he said.
The disease has since spread to 13 provinces, cities and territories in China.
The Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine on Aug. 27 stepped up quarantine checks at seaports and airports to prevent the disease from entering Taiwan.
There is no cure for ASF.
Out of 690 items examined since the quarantine checks were beefed-up, the suspect sausage package was the first time ASF has been found in a meat product brought into the nation by travelers, bureau Director-General Feng Hai-tung (馮海東) said.
People caught smuggling meat products from countries and areas affected by ASF or by foot-and-mouth disease can face a fine of up to NT$15,000, although a bill before the legislature seeks to increase the fine to NT$300,000, Huang said.
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods