The Taipei City Government yesterday gave away more than 3,000 bowls of sesame oil chicken soup at the Taipei Livestock Wholesale Market to boost consumers’ confidence in domestic chicken products, following a recent outbreak of H5N2 avian flu.
Chefs invited by the Taipei Livestock Products Marketing Corp loaded chunks of chicken into a soup seasoned with sesame oil and invited residents to enjoy a free bowl for lunch.
Deputy Taipei Mayor Chen Hsiung-wen (陳雄文) oversaw the public feast. He said the city -government had introduced a series of anti-avian flu quarantine measures to keep the H5N2 virus at bay.
Photo: CNA
All chickens and other poultry are to be inspected on being sent to the wholesale market, and certification stickers will allow consumers to know they are purchasing products that have passed health and safety tests.
Taipei’s Market Management Bureau Director Ding Juo-ting (丁若亭) said the municipal livestock market handles between 60,000 and 80,000 chickens each day, while more than 5,800 registered birds come from private chicken or livestock farms.
Wholesale trade in chicken products has fallen 30 percent since the bird flu outbreak began, he said.
“The city government is tightening quarantine measures to ensure the safety of chicken products, and consumers should not be too worried about the avian flu as long as they purchase products with certification stickers,” he said.
Since the outbreak was confirmed earlier this month, more than 50,000 chickens have been culled in areas around Greater Tainan and Changhua County, the Council of Agriculture has said.
While the Center for Disease Control emphasized that the H5N2 strain cannot be passed from animals to humans, local governments have been enhancing quarantine measures to ease public concerns about food safety.
Ding said the city government would increase the number of blood samples taken from birds from 300 to 600 a month.
The more rigorous inspections should enhance food safety, Ding said.
Civil society groups yesterday protested outside the Legislative Yuan, decrying Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) efforts to pass three major bills that they said would seriously harm Taiwan’s democracy, and called to oust KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁). It was the second night of the three-day “Bluebird wintertime action” protests in Taipei, with organizers announcing that 8,000 people attended. Organized by Taiwan Citizen Front, the Economic Democracy Union (EDU) and a coalition of civil groups, about 6,000 people began a demonstration in front of KMT party headquarters in Taipei on Wednesday, organizers said. For the third day, the organizers asked people to assemble
POOR IMPLEMENTATION: Teachers welcomed the suspension, saying that the scheme disrupted school schedules, quality of learning and the milk market A policy to offer free milk to all school-age children nationwide is to be suspended next year due to multiple problems arising from implementation of the policy, the Executive Yuan announced yesterday. The policy was designed to increase the calcium intake of school-age children in Taiwan by drinking milk, as more than 80 percent drink less than 240ml per day. The recommended amount is 480ml. It was also implemented to help Taiwanese dairy farmers counter competition from fresh milk produced in New Zealand, which is to be imported to Taiwan tariff-free next year when the Agreement Between New Zealand and
A woman who allegedly spiked the food and drinks of an Australian man with rat poison, leaving him in intensive care, has been charged with attempted murder, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. The woman, identified by her surname Yang (楊), is accused of repeatedly poisoning Alex Shorey over the course of several months last year to prevent the Australian man from leaving Taiwan, prosecutors said in a statement. Shorey was evacuated back to Australia on May 3 last year after being admitted to intensive care in Taiwan. According to prosecutors, Yang put bromadiolone, a rodenticide that prevents blood from
A Japanese space rocket carrying a Taiwanese satellite blasted off yesterday, but was later seen spiraling downward in the distance as the company said the launch attempt had failed. It was the second attempt by the Japanese start-up Space One to become the country’s first private firm to put a satellite into orbit, after its first try in March ended in a mid-air explosion. This time, its solid-fuel Kairos rocket had been carrying five satellites, including one from the Taiwan Space Agency and others designed by Japanese students and corporate ventures. Spectators gathered near the company’s coastal Spaceport Kii launch pad in Japan’s
RSS