The president of Honduras on Sunday dismissed as "unjust" a US alert urging consumers to discard Honduran cantaloupes after a salmonella outbreak sickened 59, saying the US presented no evidence that the bacteria originated in his country.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Saturday warned grocers to remove melons shipped by the Honduran company Agropecuaria Montelibano from their stock and suggested shoppers check with stores to see where recently purchased melons came from. It is also seeking to hold the company's future cantaloupe shipments to the US.
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya called the move "extreme and imprudent," noting that the melons were contaminated on their peel, not inside, meaning they may have come in contact with salmonella bacteria after they were shipped.
"It's unjust that the [US] has declared a unilateral health alert without any laboratory or clinical tests," he said.
Trade Minister Fredys Cerrato meanwhile called for the FDA to release details of studies it performed on the tainted cantaloupe to prove it was in fact from Honduras -- where there has been no corresponding outbreak of salmonella.
"This is causing us direct economic damage," Cerrato told CNN en Espanol on Sunday, noting that 5,000 Hondurans work processing melon, part of a US$100 million industry centered around the country's southern Pacific coast.
Honduran agriculture experts were to meet with FDA officials in Washington yesterday, he said, warning that the US will have to compensate Agropecuaria Montelibano for its losses should the contaminated fruit be found to have other origins.
Fifty people in 16 states and nine others in Canada have fallen sick after eating tainted cantaloupes. No deaths have been reported, although 14 people have been hospitalized, the FDA said.
Symptoms of food-borne salmonella include nausea, vomiting, fever, diarrhea and abdominal cramps.
The 16 states that have reported illnesses from the melons are Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.
The FDA said it was continuing to investigate the outbreak with the states and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS