The government on Thursday banned the importation of pork products from the Dominican Republic, citing reports of an outbreak of African swine fever in the Caribbean country.
People arriving from the Dominican Republic would be fined NT$200,000 if they are found to have pork or pork-based items on them, the Council of Agriculture’s African swine fever disaster response center said, adding that nonresidents who contravene the ban and are unable to pay the fine would be refused entry.
The US Department of Agriculture has confirmed cases of African swine fever based on samples from pigs in the Dominican Republic, the center said.
It is the first outbreak of the disease in the Caribbean region in the past few years, it said, adding that cases have more recently been reported in Asia, Europe and Africa.
Taiwan, which has a significant hog farming industry, has been on high alert over African swine fever and has banned the importation of pork from areas in Africa where outbreaks occur frequently.
However, the virus has been found in imported products such as mooncakes, which often contain pork from unknown sources, the center said, adding that mooncakes containing the virus have been seized from incoming travelers.
Mooncakes are traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on Sept. 21 this year.
African swine fever, albeit not known to be harmful to humans, has a high fatality rate for pigs. There is no cure or vaccine for the disease.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching