■ Stunts
Pair stays awake to win
After 72 hours without sleeping a man and woman won a contest yesterday, but vowed they would never deprive themselves of sleep for that long again. Hsu Wen-chieh (許文傑), 28, and Liu Hsiang-yin (劉香吟), 23, beat 17 other participants in the sleep-deprivation contest to split the NT$300,000 (US$10,000) prize, but they said staying awake for so long is so painful that they would never enter such a contest again. "I have suffered from headache, fatigue and some hallucinations. Now I know how precious sleep is," Hsu said. Hsu joined the contest, organized by a shopping center in Taichung, last Saturday because he was tricked by friends who said it was an ordinary endurance contest. Liu signed up because she thought it would be fun. From 11am last Saturday until 11am yesterday, the organizers tried to lull the contestants with food, easy listening music and boring films and made them lie down on a bed from 11pm until 7am. By Sunday afternoon, 17 participants were snoring on the bed with only Hsu and Liu fighting off sleep.
■ History
KMT reprints pro-China book
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday republished 3,000 copies of the General History of Taiwan (台灣通史). The book, written by historian Lien Heng (連橫), grandfather of KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰), was a comprehensive work on Taiwan's history covering 12 centuries up to 1918. Aside from acting as a reference book for academic research, the reprint of the book was also meant to raise funds for the party's presidential election campaign, KMT spokesman Alex Tsai (蔡正元) said. Among the 3,000 copies, priced at NT$10,000 each, 100 have been branded special editions and come in a wooden box and bear Lien Chan's signature. A special edition copy costs NT$50,000. First published in 1920, Lien Heng's book is regarded by many modern historians to be propaganda which overemphasizes Taiwan's historical links with China.
■ Agriculture
Japanese poultry banned
The Council of Agriculture (COA) announced yesterday a ban on imported chickens and related products from Japan amid confirmation of a bird flu outbreak in the country. "Following outbreaks of bird flu in China, Hong Kong and South Korea, Japan's outbreak, confirmed yesterday, has worried the COA," a statement issued by the COA said. As Hong Kong, China, South Korea and Japan are close to Taiwan, human and cargo exchanges are frequent. In addition, as it is the season for migratory birds to winter in Taiwan, the nation is vulnerable to the highly contagious epidemic, the COA said. The COA urged local chicken farmers to take measures to prevent migratory birds and wild fowl from entering henhouses or warehouses in search of food. The farmers should also take disinfection measures within and around the henhouses.
■ Culture
Date for book fair set
The 2004 Taipei International Book Fair, the 12th of its kind, is scheduled to be held at the Taipei World Trade Center exhibition halls from Jan. 28 to Feb. 2. One of the most important book exhibitions in the world and the largest in Asia, the Taipei International Book Fair will bring together publishers, writers and book dealers from dozens of countries. Some 300 booths will be set up in the first and second exhibition halls of the Taipei World Trade Center and the Taipei International Convention Center.
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
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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