CUSTOMS
Teabag shipments seized
About 17,000 teabags were seized by customs officials after a regular inspection found that the teabags contained high levels of chemicals, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. A shipment of tea from Sri Lanka and India — 197.1kg of six types of the Florian brand — was found to contain residues of 2,6-diisopropylnaphthalene, a plant growth inhibitor prohibited in Taiwan, the FDA said. A shipment of tea from Japan — 48kg of Ganko Uji — was also seized after it was found to contain residues of the pesticide thiacloprid at a concentration of 0.07 parts per million (ppm), exceeding the maximum permitted 0.05ppm, it said.
SOCIETY
Architect dies aged 96
Architect Wang Chiu-hwa (王秋華), known for her designs of public libraries, died on Monday at the age of 96, architect and writer Roan Ching-yueh (阮慶岳) said. Wang served as a model for local architects, and her thinking and values had a considerable influence on the younger generation, Roan said. Minister of Culture Lee Yung-te (李永得) on Monday offered his condolences to Wang’s family and said he would request that Wang be awarded a posthumous presidential citation. Wang was born in 1925 in Beijing, and went to the US in 1946 after obtaining a bachelor’s in architecture. She worked for US architect and urban planner Percival Goodman from the 1950s until resettling in Taipei in 1979 to continue her design work and teach at universities.
SOCIETY
Mother to be deported
An Indonesian woman living in Taichung, who on Monday called for help to save her infant son, was later detained after police found that she was in Taiwan illegally. The Taichung Fire Bureau said that it received a call from her landlord saying that the woman’s son had stopped breathing. The Duty Command Center immediately contacted her online and told her to conduct CPR as firefighters rushed to her apartment. When they arrived on the scene, the boy did not have a heartbeat and was later pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Taichung police said they suspected that he might have died from asphyxiation and quoted the woman as saying that the baby might have become pinned down by her three-year-old son, who had been sleeping in the same bed. While investigating the death, police found that the woman was a migrant worker who had skipped out on her employer. She broke the terms of her contract, so she and the three-year-old are to be repatriated, they said.
SOCIETY
Man dies in grain elevator
A Chiayi man yesterday died after slipping and falling into corn while working in a grain elevator in the county’s Yijhu Township (義竹), the Chiayi County Fire Bureau said. The bureau identified the victim as a 37-year-old man surnamed Ko (柯) who was an employee of the Yijhu Township Farmers’ Association. Ko and another employee were sweeping corn from the silo’s interior walls when he fell, the bureau said, quoting the coworker. As the corn was lowered to the conveyor belt, Ko sank into the grain, which shifted “like quicksand,” the coworker said. After breaching the wall of the silo, first responders retrieved Ko’s body with a harness, the bureau said. Ko was rushed to Tainan’s Chimei Hospital, but efforts to revive him failed and he was pronounced dead, the bureau said. Police opened an investigation to verify the witness’ account, it added.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai