WEATHER
More rain ahead: CWA
Sporadic showers and heavy rain are forecast throughout the weekend for the western half and northeastern parts of Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Wednesday. The central and southern regions may see heavy rain or extremely heavy rain, while the north is expected to see heavy rain today, CWA forecaster Huang En-hung (黃恩鴻) said. During the weekend, there would be sporadic showers or thunderstorms across Taiwan and the western half of the nation is likely to experience heavy rain. While there would be a short respite during daytime on Monday and Tuesday, another front is forecast to arrive on Tuesday night or Wednesday, bringing sporadic showers or thunderstorms across the nation with heavy rain in the west, the CWA said. Affected by the fronts, the temperature is expected to hover between lows of 23oC to 25oC and highs of 26oC to 28C, it said.
FOOD
Executives out on bail
Five executives at two Japanese-style barbecue restaurants in Taichung suspected of using expired meat and other food and ingredients have been released on bail of NT$50,000 to NT$800,000 (US$1,535 to US$24,557), the Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. The five were among eight people, including restaurateurs and employees, who were questioned on Wednesday as part of an investigation into allegations that Wagyu Emperor in Taichung’s Situn District (西屯) and Mikado Yakiniku in West District (西區) sold expired Wagyu beef. Prosecutors and police officers earlier on Wednesday raided the two restaurants, arrested the eight, and seized documents such as inventory and sales log books and other items. After questioning, the Japanese restaurateur, manager and chef of Wagyu Emperor were ordered to post bail of NT$800,000, NT$160,000 and NT$160,000 respectively, and banned from leaving the country, the office said. Meanwhile, the restaurateur of Mikado Yakiniku and a meat supplier’s sales representative were ordered to post bail of NT$300,000 and NT$50,000 respectively, it said. Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) yesterday said that the city government has ordered Mikado Yakiniku to suspend operations and fined the restaurant NT$1.92 million after expired food items were found in its kitchen.
FOOD
Kiwifruit from China barred
A 17,920kg shipment of fresh kiwifruit from China was recently seized at Taiwan’s border after being found to contain excessive pesticide residue, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Tuesday. The shipment was found to contain procymidone — a pesticide that can be used to kill fungi — at a concentration of 0.06 parts per million (ppm), exceeding the 0.01ppm limit, FDA Deputy Director-General Lin Chin-fu (林金富) said. Information provided by the FDA said the contaminated fresh kiwifruit from the brand “Yang Shi Fruit” was imported from a company in Shaanxi, China, by Grand Bay Fresh Fruits Co in Taipei and was accepted for inspection on March 29. Ten other food shipments, two shipments of chopsticks and one of paper lunchboxes were also seized at the border, the FDA said in its weekly report. The 10 included two shipments of desserts from Vietnam that contained an illegal preservative, two shipments of curry paste from Thailand that contained a banned sweetener, and a shipment of pizza sauce from South Korea that contained excessive preservatives.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its