The Department of Health (DOH) decision to try a new tool — Plurk, a micro-blogging service similar to Twitter — to promote public understanding of the new policy on US beef imports has turned out to be as controversial as the beef policy itself.

The department announced on Oct. 23 that Taiwan would expand market access for US beef, after officials of the two countries agreed on a protocol the day before in Washington, to lift a partial ban on US beef imports. Under the terms of the new protocol, US bone-in beef, ground beef, intestines, brains, spinal cords and processed beef from cattle younger than 30 months and which have not been contaminated with specific risk materials (SRMs), will be allowed to enter Taiwan starting on Nov. 10.

Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of International Affairs Director Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) yesterday alleged that China was behind Cairo barring former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) from entering Egypt even though she had a visa.

Hsiao, vice president of Liberal International (LI) who just returned from an LI Congress in Cairo, said yesterday that the Egyptian organizer, the Democratic Front Party, asked the Egyptian foreign ministry to tell the DPP, an LI member, that Cairo would not let Lu enter the country.

The four agreements signed by Taipei and Beijing last November were nothing but “window dressing,” experts attending a cross-strait forum said yesterday, urging the government to pressure Beijing to quit blocking other countries from signing free-trade agreements (FTA) with Taiwan as both sides mull an economic pact.

Wednesday will mark the agreements’ first anniversary after they were signed on Nov. 4 last year by Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and his Chinese counterpart, Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait. The agreements addressed direct sea links, daily charter flights, direct postal services and food safety.