■ Government
Legislature mulls staff limits
The Central Personnel Administration (CPA) has just completed a draft bill to create a leaner central government, with the bill scheduled to be screened jointly by three Legislative Yuan committees today. According to the CPA's draft bill, the total number of central government staff -- including those of organizations ranging from the Presidential Office and the five Yuans, to law enforcement agencies and national educational institutions -- will be limited to 200,500. The number of central government staff has continued to decline over the past three years, down 3.45 percent, 5.6 percent and 1.7 percent in 2002, 2003 and 2004, respectively, CPA officials said. The total central government staff has been cut by 48,000 over that period, they added.
■ Technology
Taiwan-Japan forum opens
The 2004 Taiwan-Japan Science and Technology Forum opened yesterday. About 260 businesspeople and academics from Japan and Taiwan will exchange views on industrial research and development policy, digital technology and nano-electroplating technology in the conference, which will end today. Speaking at the opening ceremony, Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), chairman of the Chung Hua Institution for Economic Research, lauded the forum for improving scientific and technological exchanges between Taiwan and Japan.
■ Health
Health chief arrives in Rome
Director-General of the Department of Health Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) arrived in Rome Saturday for a four-day visit. While in the Italian capital, Chen will meet with ranking health officials and public opinion leaders of Italy and the Vatican to exchange views and explore the possibility of joint cooperative ventures, particularly in the prevention and control of new contagious diseases. According to Chen, Italian Health Minister Girolamo Sirchia has proposed strengthening two-way exchanges of medical students and medical treatment personnel as a gesture to thank Taiwan for setting up a fund commemorating Dr. Carlo Urbani, who died after having discovered the SARS virus and first identified the outbreak of the killer disease.
■ Travel
Japan plans flight screening
Japan from next year will conduct immigration screening for South Koreans and Taiwanese in their home countries if they are flying to Japanese regional airports, a report said yesterday. The pre-clearance system aims to prevent illegal entries through regional airports which often have less strict screening, the mass-circulation Yomiuri Shimbun said, citing government sources. The system is likely to start with flights from Taiwan and South Korea since many travelers from those countries fly to regional airports, it said. Because local governments have been stepping up efforts to lure tourists from those countries, the number of charter flights direct to regional airports and the number of illegal entries with fake passports is rising, it noted. According to a draft transport ministry plan, three immigration officers each will be sent to South Korea and Taiwan, the Yomiuri said. They would set up special screening booths inside airports. Japan's two biggest airports, Narita and Kansai, would be excluded from the system to be launched in April next year.
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,