■ Maritime danger
Crew abandons ship
All 25 crew members aboard an Indonesian freighter that listed off Orchid Island on Wednesday night were able to safely get off the ship, officials at the government's military rescue center said yesterday morning. The 9,950-tonne Anugrah Sakti was sailing through waters 130km east of Orchid Island at around 9pm on Wednesday when it began listing. The ship's captain immediately sent out an emergency rescue signal. The military rescue center sent a helicopter from Chiayi as well as coast guard cutters from Taitung to the scene. However, just as the helicopter and cutters arrived near the scene, the center was notified by Japanese officials that the crew members had abandoned the vessel and were headed for the Philippines by motor raft. The rescue operation was then called off.
■ Culture
Documentaries to be shown
The Second Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival will take place at the Majestic Theater in Taipei between Oct. 3 and Oct. 10, featuring many extraordinary documentary films that have been made about culture and ethnography in Taiwan and in other countries. Organized by the Taiwan Association of Visual Ethnography, the festival will screen 11 documentaries produced by Taiwan and 17 by other countries, including the works of the master of French documentary Jean Rouch, the driving force in the 1950s of a new form of documentary called cinema verite. The theme this year is "Migration Story," focusing on the experiences of various people's migration. This major event of the nation's cultural calendar is expected to attract large audiences of filmgoers, teachers and students, the association said. Further information on the festival, is available at www.tieff.sinica.edu.tw.
■ Drought
Restrictions postponed
Since Typhoon Dujuan brought considerable rainfall to the north this week, it will not be necessary to consider further restrictions on water supplies to the Taipei, Taoyuan and Keelung areas before the end of next month, an official said yesterday. The government has already reduced the water supply to the three areas at night due to the drought. S.H. Chen (陳伸賢), director of the Water Conservancy Agency said further restrictions to the three areas might not be necessary later this year, because the rainy season will begin soon.
■ Weather
Typhoons greatest danger
Typhoons are the most common and deadly natural disasters in Taiwan, a report made available by the Executive Yuan yesterday showed. The report, administered and made public by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, shows that the nation has seen an average of 6.8 natural disasters a year over the past decade, more than 70 percent of which, or 4.8, were typhoons. The number of natural disasters from January to September this year was five. The most recent one, Typhoon Dujuan, claimed three lives. Agricultural and fishery losses exceeded NT$1.39 billion as of Tuesday, with fruit crops bearing the brunt of the damage. Pingtung County suffered the greatest losses, registered at NT$450 million. It was followed by Taitung County's NT$390 million and Taichung County's NT$280 million.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,