Su Wei-shuo (蘇偉碩) yesterday filed rumor-spreading and libel charges against Council of Agriculture (COA) Minister Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) over statements about US trade policy concerning pork.
Su, a former physician at the Tainan branch of Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital and a member of an alliance of groups that opposes the use leanness-enhancing agents on pigs, including ractopamine, filed the charges at the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office.
Su quoted the COA as saying in a news release that Taiwan stands to lose beneficial trade arrangements if a referendum today to prohibit imports of pork products containing traces of ractopamine is successful.
Photo: Chien Li-chung, Taipei Times
The document claimed that the US ended preferential tariff treatment for Thailand after Bangkok issued a similar ban on such pork, he said.
Citing a petition to the US Trade Representative (USTR) from the Des Moines, Iowa, and Washington-based National Pork Producers Council, Su said that the real reason for the US’ displeasure at Thailand was “discriminatory trade practices” against US pork and a US$617 million agricultural trade surplus.
Spreading false information ahead of the referendum puts Chen in breach of the Referendum Act (公民投票法), Su said.
Comments by the COA implying that Su made statistical errors while discussing Taiwan-US pork trade and has impeded Taiwan’s economic progress are libelous, he said.
The COA cited the USTR National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers as saying that Thailand’s failure to follow international safety standards on pork was why it lost preferential tariffs last year.
The council has rigorously followed the law and done its duty in explaining the implications of the referendum to the public, the COA said, adding that it would follow the will of the people as the law requires.
People should continue to cheer for Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) at the Olympics Games in Paris today, despite British writer J.K. Rowling’s remarks against her, the Sports Administration said in a statement on Wednesday. Rowling recently shared on X a story from the Guardian about Lin and Algerian boxer Imane Khelif being cleared to compete in the Olympic Games in Paris this year despite having failed gender eligibility tests at the International Boxing Association Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi last year. “What will it take to end this insanity? A female boxer left with life-altering injuries? A female boxer
SATELLITE MISSION: Today’s mission is to take off from the Xichang Launch Center and is pathed over Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, the defense ministry said China has a rocket launch scheduled for today, with the path likely to cross Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday. The launch would be among at least a dozen Chinese satellite missions in the past 18 months that have passed over the zone or Taiwan, although none threatened national security as they had left the atmosphere by that stage in their flight. The ministry first started making details of such launches public this year. Today’s mission is to take off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China’s Sichuan Province, the ministry said, citing an official announcement
WIND POWER: It is necessary to consider Taiwan’s geopolitical situation and energy security when evaluating its local content criteria, an official said Taiwan said it would continue talks with the EU following the bloc’s request for dispute settlement consultations regarding the country’s offshore wind policy. The European Commission’s Directorate General for Trade issued a statement on Friday announcing that the EU has officially requested dispute settlement consultations at the WTO concerning Taiwan’s requirement that wind power developers use a certain percentage of locally manufactured components in their projects. “In the view of the EU, Taiwan’s local content eligibility and award criteria in energy capacity allocation auctions for offshore wind farms are inconsistent with its WTO commitment to not discriminate against imported goods and services,”
SHOW OF SOLIDARITY: The event, which is the first IPAC summit held in a non-member country, demonstrates that the world supports Taiwan, a DPP lawmaker said Cross-strait issues would be among the top items on the agenda in the annual summit of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) to be held in Taipei tomorrow, which would also include a “Taiwan session,” during which President William Lai (賴清德) and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) are to deliver speeches. This would be the first IPAC summit held in Taiwan, and is also the first IPAC summit to be held in a non-member nation, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) said, adding that this demonstrates that the world supports Taiwan. Cross-strait stability is one of the