South Korean quarantine workers slaughtered thousands of pigs yesterday, as the country struggles to stem the spread of bird flu, an official said.
Nearly 4,200 pigs were killed at a farm in Asan, about 90km south of Seoul, where a case of bird flu -- South Korea's fourth in less than a month -- broke out last week, said Yoon Chang-hee, an official at the South Chungcheong provincial government.
Yoon declined to give a reason for the measure, only saying there was an Agriculture Ministry instruction to cull all pigs within 500m of the outbreak site.
Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment, but Yonhap news agency said pigs are vulnerable to respiratory diseases and could spread viruses.
In the first two bird flu outbreaks last month, South Korea slaughtered pigs, dogs and 14 unspecified animals within a 3km radius of the outbreak sites in Iksan, about 250km south of Seoul.
Yoon said about 2,000 chickens were slaughtered on Saturday at a farm near the latest outbreak site.
That brought the number of chickens and ducks culled in the latest outbreak to 25,000. More than 1.1 million poultry had been killed in the earlier three outbreaks that hit the country since late last month.
South Korea slaughtered about 5.3 million birds during a bird flu outbreak in 2003.
Infections among people have been traced to contact with infected birds, but experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that could create a pandemic among humans.
DEATH THREAT: A MAC official said that it has urged Beijing to avoid creating barriers that would impede exchanges across the Strait, but it continues to do so People should avoid unnecessary travel to China after Beijing issued 22 guidelines allowing its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death “Taiwan independence separatists,” the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday as it raised its travel alert for China, including Hong Kong and Macau, to “orange.” The guidelines published last week “severely threaten the personal safety of Taiwanese traveling to China, Hong Kong and Macau,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference in Taipei. “Following a comprehensive assessment, the government considers it necessary to elevate the travel alert to orange from yellow,” Liang said. Beijing has
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday said that the Chinese Communist Party was planning and implementing “major” reforms, ahead of a political conclave that is expected to put economic recovery high on the agenda. Chinese policymakers have struggled to reignite growth since late 2022, when restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted. The world’s second-largest economy is beset by a debt crisis in the property sector, persistently low consumption and high unemployment among young people. Policymakers “are planning and implementing major measures to further deepen reform in a comprehensive manner,” Xi said in a speech at the Great Hall
CIVIL DEFENSE: More reservists in alternative service would help establish a sound civil defense system for use in wartime and during natural disasters, Kuma Academy’s CEO said While a total of 120,000 reservists are expected to be called up for alternative reserve drills this year, compared with the 6,505 drilled last year, the number has been revised to 58,000 due to a postponed training date, Deputy Minster of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said. In principle, the ministry still aims to call up 120,000 reservists for alternative reserve drills next year, he said, but the actual number would not be decided later until after this year’s evaluation. The increase follows a Legislative Yuan request that the Ministry of the Interior address low recruitment rates, which it made while reviewing
SOLUTIONS NEEDED: Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers due to population decline, the minister of economic affairs said in Washington President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration is considering a plan to import labor to deal with an impending shortage of engineers and other highly skilled workers, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said in Washington on Tuesday. Kuo was leading a delegation attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit. Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers for high-end manufacturing jobs by 2040, he said. Ministry of Economic Affairs officials are still calculating the precise number of workers that are needed, as it works on loosening immigration restrictions and creating incentives, Kuo said. Taiwanese firms operating factories in the US and other countries would