The authority and legitimacy of the 13 Taiwan deputies to the 12th National People's Congress was challenged at yesterday's open discussion panel by journalists from the mainland and Taiwan, including the official Xinhua news agency, Guangzhou-based newspaper and Taipei's China News Agency. Wang Yifu, the Fujian deputy governor who heads the Taiwanese delegation, told a Xinhua reporter that all 13 deputies were selected from 122 candidates whose ancestors came from Taiwan. But he refused to compare their political impact and role with Taiwanese lawmakers in Legislative Yuan in Taipei when asked by CNA, saying: "under one country two systems, there is no need to force two bodies to have the same system". It has long been questioned whether the deputies could represent the 23 million population on the self-ruled island, as all were born on the mainland except Chen Yunying, who followed her husband, World Bank chief economist Justin Lin Yifu, to the mainland after he defected from Taiwan in 1979. Minnie Chan

Zhong Nanshan, a National People's Congress deputy and leading respiratory disease specialist, said the mainland each year produced between seven and 14 million tons of "gutter oil" - recycled from waste oil - of which 3.5 million tons were returned to restaurants. Zhong said some customers were unaware they were consuming the product, which could lead to stomach cancer. Poor government supervision was behind its rampant use, he said. Teddy Ng