■ Agriculture
Automation to aid exports
An agricultural improvement station in northern Taiwan has developed a set of machines that can automatically remove the stems and skins of persimmons. An official at the station said yesterday that each set of the machines can peel 600 to 720 persimmons an hour, while a person can peel 360 at most. The machine can substantially save labor costs for the food-processing industry. Hsinchu County is noted for growing persimmons. The machines can help increase persimmon exports by bringing down production costs, he said.
■ Narcotics
Agents raid drug lab
Agents raided an amphetamine factory in a residential building in Taitung County yesterday and recovered the biggest load of the illegal drug this year. The agents from the Investigation Bureau arrested two suspects, surnamed Yang and Tuan, and seized 160kg of amphetamine in crystal form and around 170kg of the drug in liquid form, as well as a batch of chemical raw materials and equipment. Bureau officials said this was the first amphetamine production factory found in Taitung, noting that the trend of drug rings has recently been to relocate from northern, western and southern Taiwan to eastern Taiwan. They said those operating the factory work weekends to produce the drug and then relocate the plant to other places. They said the raw materials to produce the amphetamines came mostly from China, and the amphetamine plant found yesterday is the eighth and the biggest uncovered so far this year. The officials discovered seven amphetamine production factories last year, and have so far cracked down on 15 such factories and seized 1,941kg of amphetamines.
■ Culture
Pianist reaches Leeds' finals
Chang Chiao-ying, a 22-year old pianist from Taipei studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London, reached the finals of the 14th Leeds International Piano Competition last Saturday. Chang reached the final six from an original line-up of 72 competitors. She was finally placed fifth for her performance of Beethoven's Concerto No. 4 in G, Opus 58 at the finals in Leeds Town Hall. Chang won a prize of £3,000 (US$4,939). The winner, 24-year old Antti Siirala from Finland, played Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 and took home £12,000.
■ Trade
Nevada opens office
The Nevada State Office on Economic Development was formally launched in Taipei yesterday. Office representative Charlyne Chen (陳思庭) said the office will focus on five business areas: education and immigration, real estate investment and development, tourism and entertainment, technology exchange as well as nuclear waste processing and disposal. Calling Nevada one of the states with the most potential, Chen said Las Vegas was not only a gambling haven but one of the most popular exhibition and conference centers in the US. Taiwan is Nevada's 11th largest trading partner, Chen said. "The office will provide complete business information, technology support and consulting for the government, companies and the public," she said. The China External Trade Development Council, Taiwan Immigration Consultants Association, Federation of Real Estate Development Associations of the Republic of China and the Tourism Bureau are the office's business partners.
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,