IMPORTS
Beef import rules eased
Taiwan has officially opened its market to imports of all Japanese beef products, regardless of the age of the cattle, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Thursday. Previously, Taiwan only permitted imports of Japanese beef from cattle under 30 months old. The policy change followed a 60-day public comment period that began on March 4, after the FDA proposed revising the restrictions, which were promulgated in 2003 during a global outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease. Since 2017, Taiwan has relaxed its beef import rules for the US, Canada and Japan. It allowed beef from cattle of all ages from the US in 2021 and from Canada in 2023. FDA Director-General Chiang Chih-kang (姜至剛) said that Japan has not reported a case of mad cow disease in more than 15 years.
Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Times
TRAFFIC
License-less driver crashes
A car driven by a person without a license crashed into a bus and three other vehicles in Taipei yesterday, injuring the driver and seven others, police said. The incident happened on the southbound-only section of Sec. 1, Chongqing S Road near Xiangyang Road, two blocks away from the Presidential Office. Dash cam footage from a trailing vehicle showed a black car speeding through a red light at the Wuchang Street intersection and into vehicles that were stopped ahead of Xiangyang Road at about 2:19pm. The front of the black car was smashed. The driver, a 78-year-old man, surnamed Chiu (邱), was taken to hospital along with seven others. Chiu initially tested negative for alcohol, but further tests were to be conducted to confirm the result, police said.
CONSTRUCTION
Collapse kills two
Two workers were killed and two were injured when scaffolding collapsed at a construction site yesterday, Taichung Fire Bureau officials said. The bureau received a report of the incident at the site in South District (南區) at 9:04am, it said. Two workers on the scaffolding, about 10 stories high, were believed to have fallen and showed no signs of life, it said. They were taken to a hospital, but efforts to resuscitate them failed and they were pronounced dead, the bureau said. The two injured workers were hit by falling scaffolding, Taichung police said. The Taichung Labor Affairs Bureau ordered the construction site to suspend operations. If an investigation finds contraventions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (職業安全衛生法), the construction company would face fines ranging from NT$30,000 to NT$300,000, the labor bureau said.
CULTURE
Manga exhibition to open
An exhibition tracing the roots of Japan’s manga culture and Taiwan’s comic book scene is to open today in Kyoto, Japan. “A Century of Manga Culture: An Encounter of Taiwan and Japan’s Youth,” organized by the Preparatory Office of the National Taiwan Museum of Comics and the Kyoto International Manga Museum, with support from the Ministry of Culture, runs through June 24 at the Kyoto museum. The exhibition delves into modern history to examine the similarities and differences between Taiwanese and Japanese comics from historical and political contexts, the organizers said. The exhibition would move to the National Taiwan Museum of Comics in Taichung from July, the Kyoto International Manga Museum said.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei MRT is to begin accepting mobile payment services in the fall, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said on Saturday. When the company finishes the installation of new payment units at ticketing gates in October, MRT passengers can use credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay, the operator said. In addition, the MRT would also provide QR payment codes — which would be compatible with Line Pay, Jkopay, iPass Money, PXPay Plus, EasyWallet, iCash Pay, Taiwan Pay and Taishin Pay — to access the railway system. Currently, passengers can access the Taipei MRT by buying a single-journey token or using EasyCard,