Nine administrative directives related to allowing US imports of pork containing ractopamine residue were submitted to a joint session composed of five committees at the Legislative Yuan for review amid a cross-party consensus yesterday.
The administrative directives were introduced after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Aug. 28 announced that the government would lift bans on US pork containing ractopamine residue and US beef from cattle more than 30 months old. The policy is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1 next year.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government has planned to allow the import of US pork through an administrative order that, according to the Administrative Procedure Act (行政程序法), requires a 60-day period for public comment before it can go into effect.
Photo courtesy of the Council of Agriculture
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has said that the issue must undergo a further, substantial review by the relevant legislative committees.
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday said that he is not opposed to the proposed policy being put to review at legislative committees.
As the DPP caucus yesterday did not object, cross-caucus consensus was reached to put the issue to review at the legislative Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee, the Economics Committee, the Foreign and National Defense Committee, the Finance Committee, and the Education and Culture Committee.
Photo courtesy of the Council of Agriculture
The administrative directives include regulations on levels of ractopamine residues in pork products; the labeling of the origin of pork products to be sold to consumers and food suppliers; quarantine and examination procedures for imported beef; and rules for imports of US and Canadian beef.
Meanwhile, the Council of Agriculture is looking for the best logo for Taiwanese pork products, with winning logos from the preliminary round now in an online vote.
The vote would run until 6pm on Monday next week, the council said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Additional reporting by Chien Hui-ju and CNA
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