■ Cross-strait issues
Fingerprint rule changes
Starting on Sept. 1, Chinese nationals visiting Taiwan will need to have two fingerprints taken. According to regulations introduced in April, a complete set of fingerprints was to be taken from every Chinese national arriving in Taiwan. However, because of human-rights concerns, as well as worries of a backlash if arrivals felt they were being treated like criminals, the head of the Ministry of the Interior's Immigration Office, Steve Wu (吳學燕), said yesterday that only two fingerprints would now be taken.
■ Crime
Girl treated like a dog
A man was accused of abusing his 10-year old daughter in Ilan County after allegedly tying a belt around her neck and walking her like a dog on the street, according to police. Police said the man, surnamed Lin, 52, had a criminal record, and would often beat his daughter after using drugs. They said Lin on Thursday afternoon abused his daughter, then took her to visit his friends, walking her like a dog in public view. Police said the girl had difficulty breathing, cried and asked her father's friends to help her. The friends reported the matter to police. The Ilan County Government's social welfare bureau is now caring for the girl. Police said Lin faces up to three years in prison if convicted.
■ Health
Family have dengue fever
A Taitung County Department of Health official has urged the public to be alert to the danger of dengue fever while visiting Southeast Asian countries, after four members of a Taitung family just back from Indonesia were confirmed to be infected with the disease. An eight-year-old boy was the first in the family confirmed to have contracted the disease -- on Wednesday -- while the father, the boy's younger brother and sister also tested positive on Friday. The mother, of Indonesian origin, said the family visited Indonesia from July 23 to last Saturday. Upon returning to Taiwan, the eight-year-old boy was found to be suffering from fever and a blood sample was taken by quarantine officials. The department then tested samples from the other family members, which also proved positive. As many Taiwanese nationals with foreign spouses will visit Southeast Asian countries during the summer months, the Taitung official reminded them to avoid mosquito bites.
■ Politics
Ma team backs reform
Several Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators have proposed that the Central Standing Committee be directly elected by party representatives, a senior KMT official said. KMT caucus whip Cho Po-yuan (卓伯源) said that the KMT has seen complete democratization after its party chairmanship election last month, and that the different voices represented the normal functioning of a democratic party. Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇), one of Ma's confidants, was also among those supporting a change in the election process for the committee. Wu will present a proposal at the party's 17th congress this Friday. Wu and several other KMT legislators have proposed an amendment to the KMT charter, calling for two-stage elections, with the 1,600 party representatives choosing the 210 members of the Central Committee in the first stage, and then electing the 31 members of the Central Standing Committee from those members in the second stage. Successive committee members are presently chosen by the current membership of the committee.
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,