Taipei District Prosecutors' Office yesterday indicted a bakery owner for importing poppy seeds to be used in making bagels.
Prosecutors have charged the baker with possession of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, an offense punishable with a prison sentence not exceeding two years or a fine not exceeding NT$30,000.
The Marco Polo Bakery said the poppy seeds it imported were not from opium poppies but the prosecution disagreed.
"Poppy seed bagels are popular in many countries, such as the US," a bakery spokesperson, Max Fan (
Last January the bakery imported 22.5kg of Australian poppy seeds from New York in four postal parcels, according to the indictment.
The Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau seized the parcels, clearly marked as poppy seeds, before the bakery had ever made use of the seeds, Fan said.
The accused bakery owner, Cho-Liu Ching-ti (
The prosecution, however, said the imported poppy seeds had been found to contain morphine and codeine in tests carried out by the Military Police's authentication laboratory.
Consulting the justice ministry, the prosecution said that poppies which contain morphine and codeine were to be identified as opium poppies, banned by the Narcotics Endangerment Prevention Act (
The prosecution said the definition of narcotics in the act was in accordance with the 1988 UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.
Fan said the poppy seeds were introduced to the bakery by its supplier in the US.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
RSS