Two pig feed factories in Tainan County were being probed yesterday by the Tainan Prosecutor’s Office with the banned drug ractopamine, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said.
The drug is used to promote the growth of lean meat in livestock, but remains in the meat after slaughter, the COA said.
Consumption of ractopamine-tainted meat may cause nausea, an increased heart beat or even death, the COA said. Ractopamine has been banned in Taiwan since 2006.
“The Tainan Prosecutor’s Office on Friday evening got a lead saying that two factories were mixing ractopamine in pig feed,” COA section chief Cheng Chun-bin (鄭純彬) said.
The names of the factories have been withheld by prosecutors.
Around midnight, Tainan prosecutor Su Jung-chao (蘇榮照) led a squad of police to the factories and found 75kg of the banned drug, Cheng said.
“The amount is enough to be mixed into 75 to 150 tonnes of pig feed … It’s a good thing we found it before it went into the market,” Cheng said.
The owner and employees of the two factories have been taken into custody for questioning, Cheng said.
They will likely be indicted for using banned drugs and for documentary fraud, the section chief said.
Asked if consumers should be concerned about pork safety, Cheng said that the COA and prosecutor offices nationwide have been working very hard on preventing ractopamine from being used.
SEND A MESSAGE: Sinking the amphibious assault ship, the lead warship of its class, is meant to show China the US Navy is capable of sinking their ships, an analyst said The US and allied navies plan to sink a 40,000-tonne ship at the latest Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise to simulate defeating a Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan. This year’s RIMPAC — the 29th iteration of the world’s largest naval exercise — involves the US, 28 partners, more than 25,000 personnel, 40 warships, three submarines and more than 150 aircraft operating in and around Hawaii from yesterday to Aug. 1, the US Navy said in a press release. The major components of the event include multidomain warfare exercises in multiship surface engagements, anti-submarine warfare and multi-axis defense of a carrier strike
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
The airspace around Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) is to be closed for an hour on July 25 and July 23 respectively, due to the Han Kuang military exercises, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday. The annual exercise is to be held on Taiwan proper and its outlying islands from July 22 to 26. During last year’s exercise, the military conducted anti-aircraft landing drills at the Taoyuan airport for the first time, for which a one-hour no-fly ban was issued. Based on a live-fire bulletin sent out by the Maritime and Port Bureau, the nation’s
CROSS-BORDER CRIME: The suspects cannot be charged with cybercrime in Indonesia as their targets were in Malaysia, an Indonesian immigration director said Indonesian immigration authorities have detained 103 Taiwanese after a raid at a villa on Bali, officials said yesterday. They were accused of misusing their visas and residence permits, and are suspected of possible cybercrimes, Safar Muhammad Godam, director of immigration supervision and enforcement at the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights told reporters at a news conference. “The 103 foreign nationals stayed at the villa and conducted suspicious activities, which we suspect are activities related to cybercrime activities,” he said, presenting laptops and routers at the news conference. Godam said Indonesian authorities cannot charge them with conducting cybercrime. “During the inspection, we