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Taiwan lawmakers throw pig guts amid debate over US pork and beef imports

The Taiwan parliament descended into chaos on Friday (November 27) as legislators from the opposition party, KMT, threw pig guts at Premier Su Tseng-chang.

Opposition legislators began dumping bags of pig organs in the assembly as a form of protest against a law soon to be enacted that will lift a long standing ban on US pork and beef imports.

Things escalated when Su Tseng-chang was due to give an update about the controversial piece of legislation, which resulted in pig organs being thrown across the room.

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators attempted to stop the KMT but this action resulted in physical punches being thrown.

“When you were in the opposition, you were against U.S. pork; now that you’re in power, you’ve become a supporter of U.S. pork,” said KMT legislator Lin Wei-chou.

The KMT previously wore black t-shirts which read, “oppose ractopamine-pork.”

Earlier in August, President Tsai Ing-wen’s administration lifted the ban on imported U.S. pork and beef.

The decision has been met with strong opposition, with thousand taking to the streets to protest the move.

The major contention with the new policy is that it allows pork which may contain residues of ractopamine to enter the country.

Ractopamine is an animal feed additive which helps to make pigs among other animals more muscular, reducing the fat content in meat and increasing the profit per animal.

However ractopamine is banned from food production in at least 160 countries around the world, including countries across Europe, Russia, mainland China and Republic of China (Taiwan), due to its suspected health effects.

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