week7- Chang Guann. gutter oil(tainted tard oil)

Chang Guann ‘sorry’ for tainted lard oil

Fri, Sep 05, 2014

By Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

GUTTER INGREDIENTS: The Greater Kaohsiung company said it was recalling all of its Chuan Tung ‘fragrant lard oil’ that have an expiry date prior to March 1 next year

Chang Guann Co (強冠企業), a food oil manufacturer in Greater Kaohsiung, yesterday apologized to the public after one of its lard products was allegedly found to be tainted with “gutter oil” illegally recycled by an unlicensed factory in Pingtung County.

Gutter oil, also known as drainage oil, is recycled oil collected from various sources such as kitchen fryers, restaurant drains and grease traps. It is mainly used in the production of soap.

“We only began purchasing lard from the Pingtung factory on Feb. 25 this year. As of last month, a total of 243 tonnes of lard had been bought from the factory, 216 tonnes of which have been used as a base oil in the manufacturing of 780 tonnes of edible lard oil,” the company based in Daliao District (大寮) said in a press release.

There was an immediate trickle-down effect after Chang Guann Co’s apology. Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品工業) said it had immediately pulled 12 pork floss and meat paste products from stores.

Wei Chuan has purchased oil products that have been found to have questionable ingredients from Chang Guann Co and used them in the 12 products, so it decided to temporarily stop sales for the products and accept returns from consumers, Wei Chuan said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

The company said it had informed Taipei’s Public Health Bureau and would fully cooperate with the government regarding inspection on these products.

Wei Chuan said it will consider seeking reimbursement from Chang Guann to protect its rights and interests if the oil products purchased from Chang Guann are confirmed to have included the suspect ingredients.

Chang Guann said the 780 tonnes of processed lard oil were divided into 51,700 cartons and marketed as “fragrant lard oil” (香豬油) under its cooking oil brand, Chuan Tung (全統), and that 48,500 cartons had been sold.

“We are also a victim in this case. Although not all of our fragrant lard oil products contain the alleged gutter oil, to safeguard consumers’ interest, on Tuesday we ordered the recall of all products with an expiration date before March 1 next year,” the company said.

The statement was issued just hours after Chang Guann deputy general manager Tai Chi-chuan (戴啟川) was summoned for questioning by the Pingtung District Prosecutors’ Office, following a raid carried out by the Criminal Investigation Bureau’s southern crime combat center on the unlicensed factory in Pingtung.

The factory’s owner, Kuo Lieh-cheng, (郭烈成) and an employee surnamed Shih (施) were also questioned yesterday, along with Kuo Chun-yeh (郭春葉), the owner of animal feed manufacturer Ching Wei Co (進威) — which allegedly bought gutter oil from the same factory for use in its pig feed products — Kuo’s wife and an employee surnamed Su (蘇), Pingtung Chief District Prosecutor Yang Wan-li (楊婉莉) said.

“The office joined hands with the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] and the health departments of Pingtung and Greater Kaohsiung to investigate whether the factory sold gutter oil disguised as lard, and where and to whom such products were sold,” Yang said.

FDA Southern Center Deputy Director Liu Fang-ming (劉芳銘) said a preliminary investigation showed that Chang Guann’s fragrant lard oil products manufactured between March 1 and Aug. 29 could have been mixed with the alleged gutter oil.

“Since the potentially contaminated products were packaged in 15kg and 16kg cartons, they were likely to have been sold to small restaurants or eateries rather than consumers,” Liu said.

If Chang Guann bought the suspect lard without knowing what it really was, the company’s owners might only be subject to a fine ranging from NT$60,000 (US$2,000) to NT$50 million, as stipulated in Article 15 of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法), Liu said.

“However, if the firm was aware of the lard’s real contents and still used it to manufacture cooking oil, its owners could face a maximum prison term of seven years,” he said.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2014/09/05/2003599041/1

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- The Greater Kaohsiung company
WHEN- an expiry date prior to March 1 next year
WHAT- not fiven
WHY- not fiven
WHERE- not fiven
HOW- not given

Keywords：

1.          tainted :污染的

2.          lard :豬油

3.          gutter : 排水溝

4.          allegedly : 據宣傳

5.          drainage :排水.放水

6.          inspection : 檢查

7.          reimbursement : 退款

8.          surname :姓

9.          preliminary : 預備的.初步的

10.      contaminate :污染

11.      stipulate : 規定

week6 - Scottish independence referendum

Scottish referendum poll tracker

On 18 September 2014 millions of Scots will vote on whether they want their country to become independent or remain part of the United Kingdom. But what do opinion polls suggest about which way the decision will go?

Analysis

David Cowling, Editor, BBC Political Research Unit

Over recent weeks the gap between "No" and "Yes" has narrowed in the opinion polls and this has created its own excitement as the two campaign groups redouble their efforts to convince voters to support them.

As each side tries to create momentum, the polls are used to batter their opponents. But where does that warfare leave individual electors as they seek to discover possible outcomes?

Traditionally, we describe polls as temperature readings valid at the time they are taken.

Individual polls are important, but we should also be looking at any trend over time: is the direction of travel benefiting one side or the other?

However, it is also important to look beyond the headline poll figures for "Yes" or "No".

Most polls will ask respondents how certain they are to vote - are the supporters of one side more enthusiastic about voting than those of the other. Pollsters will often adjust their referendum voting figures to take account of any such differences.

The issues of what currency an independent Scotland would use, as well as the economic consequences of any independence have played a significant role in the campaign.

The campaign polls have also revealed significant differences between various groups: older voters are much more likely to oppose independence than younger voters; women are much less supportive of independence than men; and people living in Scotland but born outside it are less favourable towards an independent Scotland than native-born Scots.

Will the final polls show that these divisions remain, or will they become less stark?

The polls certainly suggest that the real battleground in this campaign is among Labour voters. Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are overwhelmingly opposed to independence but there is evidence that a significant minority of Labour voters support it and, I suspect, they will be the focus of the two campaigns right up to 18 September.

And this campaign will be a real test for the polling companies themselves.

You would think, given the choice is simply "Yes" or "No", that the challenge to produce accurate figures would be relatively simple. But predicting the same "Yes" or "No" choice in the 2011 UK referendum on the Alternative Vote system caused some pollsters serious grief.

The September referendum has no precedent for the pollsters to measure their 2014 poll results against. This issue cuts across gender, families, friendships and parties and that makes the work of the pollsters more difficult than simply measuring either "Yes" or "No" would suggest.

http://www.bbc.com/news/events/scotland-decides/poll-tracker

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- Scots
WHEN- 18 September 2014
WHAT- vote on whether they want their country to become independent or remain part of the United Kingdom
WHY- not fiven
WHERE- Scottland
HOW- not given

Keywords：

1.          referendum : 公民投票

2.          poll : 投票選舉

3.          redouble : 使加倍.加強

4.          momentum : 動力

5.          batter : 向上遞傾

6.          favourable : 贊同的

7.          precedent : 先例

week5 - ebola (virus). west Africa

WHO says Ebola outbreak continues to spread in West Africa

7:55 a.m. EDT October 24, 2014

Ebola is racing ahead of efforts to contain its spread, according to the World Health Organization. There are now nearly 10,000 reported cases – a tally that clearly underestimates that true scope.

Ebola is racing ahead of efforts to contain its spread, according to the World Health Organization.

There are nearly 10,000 reported cases -- a tally that underestimates the true scope of the epidemic as overwhelmed health workers fall behind in their record-keeping, the WHO says. About half of Ebola patients have died.

Ebola has now reached every district in Sierra Leone and all but one district in Liberia, with "intense transmission" in these countries' capital cities, according to the WHO.

West Africa today is nowhere near goals set by the United Nations to get the outbreak under control, according to the WHO.

Even with the modest goal of meeting 70% of the region's needs by Dec. 1, affected countries would need at least 16 more labs to help medical staff quickly diagnose patients, 230 more "dead body management teams" to bury or cremate bodies in ways that don't spread Ebola, ​; 4,388 more hospital beds; and 20,000 contract tracers to find and isolate potential cases.

Today, Liberia has enough beds for only 23% of patients, according to the WHO. That means 77% of Ebola patients are languishing and dying at home or, worse, in the street.

Infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm said he's concerned that Ebola is poised to spill over the borders to other African countries, such as Ivory Coast. Of the eight districts in Guinea and Liberia that border Ivory Coast, all but one have reported Ebola cases, the WHO said.

In August, Ivory Coast closed its borders with Ebola-affected countries and temporarily suspended flights.

Two of the four areas of Guinea with new Ebola cases this week are near the border with Ivory Coast, a country of 20 million people, according to the WHO. With a metro area population of more than 7 million, Ivory Coast's economic capital, Abidjan, is the second largest city in West Africa, behind Lagos, Nigeria.

"There is no magic boundary at the border," said Osterholdm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. "We shouldn't be surprised if we see cases."

Osterholm notes that farmers often leave home in the fall, as they finish harvesting their crops, and migrate to other countries looking for work. He fears that those seasonal migrations could help spread Ebola across Africa.

Flights between Ivory Coast and the three Ebola-affected countries -- which were suspended this summer over Ebola fears -- resumed this week.

Osterholm said migrant workers often bypass official border checkpoints because they travel on foot through the countryside.

Like Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia -- three countries hit hardest by Ebola – Ivory Coast has weathered years of political instability and civil war, said William Moss, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

The WHO has blamed Ebola's spread through West Africa on poverty, lack of education and crumbling public health systems, which were battered during years of conflict. Although the first Ebola case apparently occurred in Guinea in December, local health officials didn't realize they were dealing with an Ebola outbreak until March, when there were already nearly 50 cases.

At a press conference Thursday, WHO officials addressed rumors that Ebola had been detected in other West African countries.

"At WHO, we hear about many rumors of cases in different countries. Most of these turn out to be negative," Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's assistant director-general for health security and environment, said following a meeting on Ebola.

"Ebola is one of these things that is really hard to cover up," Fukuda said. "There is reasonable confidence that we are not seeing widespread transmission into neighboring countries. ... .We think it would be very difficult to miss."

The WHO is working to prepare Ivory Cost and 14 other countries with borders or strong travel ties to the Ebola-affected nations. The WHO will stage simulation drills, for example, and provide other types of technical assistance.

Beginning with trips to Ivory Coast and Mali, "WHO teams will build on previous work with each country to help identify any gaps in their capacity to identify and respond" to Ebola, according to a WHO report issued Wednesday.

Even Doctors Without Borders, which has been fighting Ebola since March, has had to suspend routine care of women and children at one of its hospitals in Sierra Leone, which once admitted more than 10,000 people per year. The organization's overwhelmed staff can no longer maintain "flawless infection control" in that hospital, putting staff lives at risk.

"It is our intention to resume our activities ... as soon as possible, but for that we need to first put all of our energy in fighting Ebola," said Brice de le Vingne, director of operations at Doctors Without Borders. "We really hope that in a few months, we'll be able to focus once again on treating mothers and children."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/23/who-ebola-update/17767789/

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- not given
WHEN-not given
WHAT-Ebola
WHY- Ebola is racing ahead of efforts to contain its spread
WHERE- not given
HOW- not given

Keywords：

1.          tally : 計數單位

2.          underestimate : 低估

3.          district : 行政區

4.          cremate : 火葬

5.          languishing : 衰弱

6.          infectious : 傳染的

7.          suspend : 使中止

8.          boundary : 邊界

9.          migrate : 遷移

10.      instability : 不穩定性

11.      transmission : 傳送