Ting Yi-ming (丁怡銘) has resigned as Executive Yuan spokesman after wrongly claiming that an award-winning beef noodle soup restaurant serves meat that contains ractopamine.
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) late on Sunday approved Ting’s resignation with immediate effect, Executive Yuan Secretary-General Li Meng-yen (李孟諺) said yesterday.
Li has been assigned by Su to temporarily fill Ting’s post.
Photo: Chen Wei-tzu, Taipei Times
Ting said that he resigned to take responsibility for trouble caused by his comments last week.
Ting, at a news conference held following the Executive Yuan’s weekly meeting on Thursday, said that the winner in this year’s Taipei International Beef Noodle Festival uses imported US beef containing the leanness enhancer.
The restaurant quickly responded by posting on Facebook a copy of its SGS certification showing that no ractopamine residue was found in its beef.
Ting subsequently walked back the comments, apologized to the restaurant “for any trouble caused” and reiterated that any imported beef which meets Codex Alimentarius Commission standards is safe for consumption.
The statement was condemned by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which accused Ting of spreading false information as a government spokesman and called on him to resign.
Separately yesterday, KMT Taipei City Councilor Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇), New Party Taipei City Councilor Ho Han-ting (侯漢廷) and KMT Taichung City Councilor Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) filed charges against Ting at the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, accusing him of breaching the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法), which states that people who intentionally spread false information about food safety issues that incurs damage to the public or another person face a maximum prison term of three years or a fine of NT$1 million (US$34,710).
A survey of young Taiwanese showed that only 36.5 percent of men and 19.6 percent of women believe marriage is important, a trend that academics say is key to the nation’s low birthrate. Yang Wen-shan (楊文山), an adjunct research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology, yesterday announced the 12th round of results from a longitudinal survey of attitudes among young Taiwanese toward markers of adulthood. While few of the respondents, who were aged 28 to 32 when surveyed in 2017, found marriage to be important, 95.8 percent believed that being responsible for oneself should take precedence, data showed. Economic independence came in
SHRINKING FEMALE POPULATION: Last year, 107.74 boys were born for every 100 girls in Taiwan, which is a greater gender imbalance than in Japan and South Korea The Ministry of the Interior recorded 9,601 births in January, the first time the nation has produced fewer than 10,000 newborns in a single month, while different indicators showed that Taiwan might also be facing a population with increasingly fewer births, women and marriages. It comes after the ministry reported a record low 165,249 births last year, which was lower than the 173,156 deaths recorded last year. The nation experienced negative population growth for the first time last year, ministry data found. The number of births in January also dropped from a year earlier, when there were 12,510 births. In February, there were
The Hualien District Prosecutors’ Office has listed six people as suspects in a judicial investigation into a fatal train crash on Friday last week. Fifty people were killed and more than 200 were injured when the Taroko Express No. 408 train slammed into a crane truck that had slid onto the tracks near the entrance of Cingshuei Tunnel (清水隧道) in Hualien’s Sioulin Township (秀林). The office also summoned six officials at the Taiwan Railways Administration’s (TRA) Hualien Engineering Section for questioning about alleged illegal business operations and unsafe work conditions by Yi Hsiang Industry Co and Tung Hsin Construction Co, the two
KEEPING FOCUSED: Premier Su Tseng-chang was said to have commended Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung, but said the tragedy takes priority Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) has submitted a verbal resignation in the wake of the Taroko Express No. 408 train crash two days ago, Executive Yuan spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said yesterday. In a call, Lin told Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) that he wished to step down, to take responsibility for the deadliest accident involving a Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) train in 40 years. As of press time last night, the Hualien District Prosecutors’ Office had revised the death toll from 51, which had been reported on the previous day, to 50, after DNA testing showed that what had