Taiwanese firm at centre of ‘gutter oil’ scandal ordered to pull products

Taiwan has ordered the cooking oil supplier at the centre of a snowballing food scandal to pull all of its "Chuan Tung" lard oil products from shop shelves, even if they passed food safety tests.

The order followed reports that edible oil firm Chang Guann had blended "gutter oil" - illegally produced oil usually made from recycled kitchen waste - with fresh lard oil to produce 782 tonnes of Chuan Tung brand oil.

The scandal has rocked the food industry, with revelations that the oil was sold to more than 1,000 food manufacturers, bakeries, restaurants and night markets and used in a huge range of products, from mooncakes and dumplings to instant noodles, crackers and buns.

The scare has spread to Hong Kong, where Maxim's Group has admitted using Chang Guann oil to make 9,000 pineapple buns a day for the past three years. Yesterday, dumpling franchise Bafang Yunji said it had stopped selling curry dumplings at its 54 stores in Hong Kong because the curry paste supplier in Taiwan sourced its oil from Chang Guann.

Dr Philip Ho Yuk-yin, the Centre for Food Safety's consultant of community medicine, said the centre had phoned more than 100 businesses and sent emails to 10,000 or so others to verify whether they had used the oil. Only "dozens" returned calls and none replied to emails.

Hop Hing Oil Procurement said yesterday it had imported oil from Chang Guann. But it added that the oil was not the same type as the suspected gutter oil. The oil was supplied for bakery products and dim sum and all had been recalled.

Ho also said the centre had taken 46 food and oil samples from importers for laboratory tests. Tests on most samples have been completed. No samples were made from gutter oil.

Taiwan's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released test results yesterday showing that one sample of the oil sold under the Chuan Tung brand met hygiene requirements. However, samples from two other batches - obtained by prosecutors investigating the scandal - failed the tests.

The FDA also said there was no record of Chang Guann importing gutter oil from the mainland. But the company had imported 87 tonnes of lard oil from Hong Kong and 672 tonnes from Japan.

Cabinet spokesman Sun Li-chyun said the government understood there could be "mixed feelings" about the decision to pull the products. "Even though it passed the test, [the oil] must be removed from shelves because Chang Guann used recycled oil, which is a violation of the food safety law here."

He said Premier Jiang Yi-huah had stressed that any manufacturers found to have violated food safety laws must be punished severely.

The FDA tests included scans for moulds and heavy metals.

The authorities tested three samples from the underground factory in the southern county of Pingtung that supplied the product to Chang Guann. Two of those samples had more than triple the acceptable level of benzo(a)pyrene, a carcinogenic compound. Another series of samples of pre-refined oil from Chang Guann exceeded acceptable acid value levels, as did the underground factory samples.

Chen Hui-fang, head of the FDA's research and inspection section, said it also tested Chuan Tung lard. "Our lab results show that Chuan Tung lard had been refined and, except for the heavy metal part - the test for which has yet to be completed - the lard oil met all [safety] requirements."

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Oil has many ways of entering the gutter

The term "gutter oil" first caught the mainland public's attention in 2010 when a professor in Wuhan revealed that up to 10 per cent of cooking oil used on the mainland could be made from recycled kitchen waste.

He Dongping, of Wuhan Polytechnic University, estimated then that restaurants and food stalls throughout the country used about three million tonnes of illegally produced oil every year, igniting a food scare.

Gutter oil refers to oil that is made by recovering and reprocessing liquid or solid kitchen waste scooped from gutters, waste bins or even sewers.

Structure of the Lead：

   who-Taiwan

   When-September,8,2014

   What-has ordered the cooking oil supplier at the centre of a snowballing food scandal

   Why-Not given

   How-Not given

KeyWords:

  

 supplier-供應商

 shelves-貨架

 consultant-顧問

 procurement-採購

 laboratory-實驗室

 prosecutors-檢察官

   

week 6-actor, Ko, Jaycee, drug, arrest

Jaycee Chan has been formally arrested on drug charges, nearly a month after he was caught smoking marijuana in Beijing.

The prosecutor's office, or procuratorate, in Beijing's Dongcheng district approved the arrest of Jaycee Fong Cho-ming, son of international kung fu icon Jackie Chan, on suspicion of "accommodating drug users".

This signals that authorities are moving forward with the case against Jaycee, who is currently in detention.

Jaycee, 32, was taken away by police on August 14 with his friend Taiwanese actor Ko Chen-tung, 23, for doing drugs at a foot massage parlour in Beijing.

Police recovered more than 100 grams of marijuana from Chan's home in Beijing.

Mainland media reported that Jaycee Chan admitted that he first abused drugs in the Netherlands in 2006, while Ko did so for the first time in Jaycee’s home two years ago.

The public security bureau of Dongcheng had sought the procuratorate’s approval for Chan’s arrest on September 10, the statement on Weibo said.

Chinese police need official approval from prosecutors to formally arrest a suspect. During a period of formal arrest, police can continue to investigate. If they decide to criminally charge him, a trial would follow.

The maximum sentence for allowing others to take drugs in a property, workplace or hotel is three years’ imprisonment.

Ko was given a sentence of 14 days in administrative detention after he admitted using marijiuana.

On his release, he appeared at a news conference with his parents and agent and apologised for smoking the drug. 

Jackie Chan, who was named an anti-drug ambassador in 2009 by Chinese authorities, has publicly apologised for his son’s drug use and pledged to work with him on his recovery.

A series of celebrities have been detained on drug charges following a declaration in June by President Xi Jinping that illegal drugs should be wiped out and that offenders would be severely punished.

Performing arts associations and theatre companies in Beijing have pledged not to hire any actors connected with drugs, and national associations representing film actors, directors and producers have reportedly issued a notice saying members who repeatedly take drugs will be expelled and banned from making movies.

Structure of the Lead：

   who-Jaycee Chan

   When-August,14,2014

   What-Jaycee Chan has been formally arrested on drug charges

   Why-Not given

   How-Not given

KeyWords:

   marijuana-大麻
   prosecutor-原告
   suspicion-懷疑
   imprisonment-徒刑  
   ambassador-大使
   detain-扣留
   offender-犯罪份子
   
   
   
   

week 5

The Islamist group Boko Haram has seized Chibok, the Nigerian town from which it kidnapped 276 schoolgirls earlier this year, in a show of strength that makes the teenagers’ safe release a more distant prospect than ever.

The militants attacked at about 4pm on Thursday, destroying communications masts and forcing residents to flee, according to witnesses. One described running past bodies strewn on a street.

The fall of Chibok is hugely symbolic. The town in north-east Nigeria became the centre of world attention in April when Boko Haram fightersstormed the government girls secondary school, forced students onto trucks and drove them into the bush. There was a global Twitter campaign, BringBackOurGirls, and criticism of the government’s response.

Tsambido Hosea Abana, a community leader from Chibok who has cousins and nieces among the 219 teenagers still being held, said on Friday: “Our girls are in the bush and they are killing the parents. We are talking about the lives of the parents and adults now. This thing has gone beyond anyone’s control.”

Speaking from the capital, Abuja, Abanda said he had sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews in Chibok. “I’ve only heard from one. He was on his way to Chibok and he met people running away so he turned around. A villager told me he saw corpses lying in the street; he could not count them because he was running.”

He joined criticism of the military’s handling of the crisis. “They are not doing well. How can they just run away when they hear ‘Allahu Akbar’? They are handing over weapons to these boys.”

Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, claims to have carried through his promise to marry off the teenagers still being held and said they had all converted to Islam.

Enoch Mark, a Christian pastor whose daughter and niece are among the kidnapped, told Agence France-Presse “Chibok was taken by Boko Haram. They are in control.”

Mark said the attack on the town, which residents have warned of for some time, appeared to come after Boko Haram overran the towns of Hong and Gombi in neighbouring Adamawa state. “They came in and engaged soldiers and vigilantes in a gunfight,” he added.

“Some of us managed to escape. All the telecom towers in the town were destroyed during the attack with RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades]. No one can say what the situation is in the town in terms of destruction to property.”

Pogo Bitrus, chairman of the elders forum in Chibok, also confirmed the attack but said Boko Haram may have had inside information about security. “The vigilantes use shotguns and cartridges and have been short in supply, so the leader left yesterday for Maiduguri to procure more in the event of any attack,” he told AFP.

“But Boko Haram launched the attack while he was still in Maiduguri. He was due to come today, so it looks like they knew what was happening.”

Bitrus said the vigilantes were preparing for a counter-attack and troops had been deployed from Damboa, 22 miles away by road to the north-west. “I can assure you they are going to retake Chibok,” he added.

Boko Haram – whose name means “western education is sinful” – have been waging a deadly five-year insurgency aimed at creating a hardline Islamist state in the north of Africa’s most populous country. In October the government announced a ceasefire had been agreed, but the group’s leader denied this and has intensified attacks since.

Last Monday, 58 boys were killed when a suspected Boko Haram suicide attacker detonated explosives at a school in Potiskum, Yobe state.

Two weeks ago it took the commercial hub of Mubi, killing dozens and torching houses, and renamed it “Madinatul Islam” (“City of Islam” in Arabic), residents told AFP. It introduced its strict version of Islamic law, including amputations for alleged thieves.

However, in a rare setback, about 200 vigilantes and hunters armed with bows and arrows, clubs, spears, machetes and home-made guns helped the Nigerian military regain control of Mubi, which had been the biggest town under the extremists’ control.

One resident, who asked not to be named, told AFP: “I saw the Boko Haram fighters fleeing in droves in their vehicles when the hunters and vigilantes entered the town.

“Their emir [leader] was captured by the hunters and made to sit outside the military barracks that he and his men turned into their base. He had his hands tied from the back and we swarmed to have a look but we were later dispersed by the hunters.”

Mubi is the first town Boko Haram has lost since August, when it declared a caliphate in areas under its control. But celebrations were cut short when Boko Haram fighters seized the towns of Gombi, Hong and the major prize of Chibok.

Earlier this week president Goodluck Jonathan, whose leadership during the crisis has been widely questioned, announced his intention to seek another term in office, pledging to defeat the insurgents and free the schoolgirls.

Structure of the Lead：

   WHO-The Islamist group Boko Haram

   When-this year

   What- kidnapped 276 schoolgirls

   Why-Not given

   How-Not given

KeyWords:

militant-激進
mast-桅杆
strewn-散落
niece-侄女
nephew-侄子
barrack-軍營