■ Weather
CWB monitoring Meari
The Central Weather Bureau is closely monitoring Typhoon Meari, which is now a medium typhoon, bureau sources reported yesterday. The bureau is not expected to issue any warnings for Meari before tomorrow. Meari, the 21st typhoon reported in the Pacific area this year, was centered about 1,900km southeast of Taiwan at 8am yesterday with a radius of 150km. It was moving northwesterly toward Taiwan at a speed of 16kph and packing maximum sustained winds of up to 118kph, forecasters said. The bureau also warned that the first cold front from the north this year has arrived, lowering temperatures and bringing showers.
■ Crime
Hundreds of thefts unsolved
There are 183 unsolved burglary cases involving NT$400 million (US$11.83 million) from the last five years in Taipei, Taipei City Councillor Wang Hao (王浩) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday during a question-and-answer session at Taipei City Council. He said that police stations in the Taan, Sungshan, and Neihu districts have the most unsolved cases. There were 73 major burglaries involving NT$144 million in the Taan district, including a burglary at the dormitory of the America Institute in Taiwan. He questioned whether police have only focused on major criminal cases and neglected burglaries.
■ Cross-strait ties
Illegal migrants repatriated
A group of 131 illegal Chi-nese immigrants, including a dozen infants, were repatriated from Matsu yes-terday with the assistance of the Red Cross Societies on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. They were the last batch of illegal immigrants to be sent home before the Mid-Autumn Festival next Tuesday. There are still 79 illegal immigrants at the Matsu center and the number of illegals held at detention centers awaiting repatriation exceeds 2,000.
■ Defense
Pingtung plant hosts drill
A nuclear safety drill was held in Pingtung County yesterday, simulating radia-tion leaks from a nuclear plant, terrorist attacks and sabotage by Chinese agents. The exercise was staged at the Second Nuclear Power Plant complex by the Atomic Energy Council (AEC), Taiwan Power Co and the county government. "The drill covered a vast area of five kilometers surrounding the plant as this year's focus is damage control in the event of a radiation leak," said a council official. The army's chemical warfare troops fought off mock terrorist attacks while coast guard officers searched for purported Chinese agents hiding in the facility.
■ Diplomacy
MOFA dismisses report
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday dismissed a media report that the gov-ernment will contribute US$40 million over a 20 year period to a US-backed trust fund for the Marshall Islands. "We have not yet come to a conclusion although we're indeed studying the possi-bility," said ministry spokes-man Michel Lu (呂慶龍),referring to a report quoting the Pacific nation's Foreign Minister Gerald Zackios. Zackios said that Taiwan had agreed to give US$1 million annually until 2009, and then increase the amount to US$2.4 million annually through 2023. The trust fund's goal is to replace US grant funding when the compact ends in 2023. Tai-wan and the Marshall Islands have had diplomatic ties since 1998.
■ Tourism
Delegation heads to Tokyo
A delegation of Taiwanese travel agents and hotel, amusement park and museum operators will take part in the JATA World Travel Fair 2004 to open later this week in Japan to promote Taiwan's tourism, Tourism Bureau officials said yesterday. The fair, which runs from today until Sunday in Tokyo, is the largest travel exhibition in Asia. It attracted approximately 100,000 visitors and exhibitors last year. The 58-member delegation will be led by Michael Sheu, deputy director-general of the Tourism Bureau. To highlight the unique characteristics of Taiwan, an Aboriginal cultural troupe will perform songs and dances at the event, and there will also be demonstrations of paper umbrella painting and silhouette cutting.
■ Statistics
Salaries fell in July
Taiwanese workers earned an actual average salary of NT$35,010 (US$1,034) in July, down by 0.08 percent compared with the previous year and marking the first fall in 24 years, according to the latest statistics released yesterday. The statistics compiled by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) show that Taiwan's workers in the industrial and service sectors had an average income of NT$40,015 (US$1,176) in July. The first decline in the actual salary growth rate is an indication that the pace of product price hikes has outstripped that of salary increases for average workers, making them further feel the pinch of reduced earnings despite an apparent economic recovery, DGBAS officials said. Even worse, average per capita working hours rose to 189.9 hours for July, an increase of 6.8 hours over the June average.
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
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,
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