Taiwan and Canada have signed letters for an organic equivalence arrangement that took effect on May 30, the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei said on Facebook yesterday.
The letters were signed and exchanged between Lyzette Lamondin, executive director of food safety and consumer protection for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and Agriculture and Food Agency Director-General Hu Jong-i (胡忠一) on May 27, it said.
According to an overview posted on the official Web site of the Government of Canada, “the recognitions apply to agricultural products of plant origin, and processed foods of plant origin, livestock and livestock products, as well as aquaculture products grown or produced in each jurisdiction or whose final processing or packaging occurs within each jurisdiction.”
The accord allows organic products certified in Taiwan or Canada to be sold as organic in either market.
Information from the Agriculture and Food Agency shows that Canada is Taiwan’s second-largest source of imports for organic products, after the US.
On Thursday last week, Taiwan and the US also signed an organic equivalence arrangement, which according to the Agriculture and Food Agency, was the fifth such deal reached, after Japan, New Zealand, Australia and Canada.
Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said. The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology. Two-nanometer wafers are the most
Tsunami waves were possible in three areas of Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East, the Russian Ministry for Emergency Services said yesterday after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the nearby Kuril Islands. “The expected wave heights are low, but you must still move away from the shore,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app, after the latest seismic activity in the area. However, the Pacific Tsunami Warning System in Hawaii said there was no tsunami warning after the quake. The Russian tsunami alert was later canceled. Overnight, the Krasheninnikov volcano in Kamchatka erupted for the first time in 600 years, Russia’s RIA
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South Korea yesterday said that it was removing loudspeakers used to blare K-pop and news reports to North Korea, as the new administration in Seoul tries to ease tensions with its bellicose neighbor. The nations, still technically at war, had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung. It said in June that Pyongyang stopped transmitting bizarre, unsettling noises along the border that had become a major nuisance for South Korean residents, a day after South Korea’s loudspeakers fell silent. “Starting today, the military has begun removing the loudspeakers,”