■ POLITICS
KMT announces rally dates
As all political parties begin the countdown to the Dec. 3 local government elections, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday announced three large campaign rallies to be held in Pingtung, Miaoli and Taipei Counties, and an anti-corruption protest to be held on on Nov. 27. According to KMT Spokeswoman Cheng Li-wen (鄭麗文), the large campaign rallies will be held in Pingtung on Nov. 19, followed by one in Miaoli on Nov. 26 and on election eve, Dec. 2, in Taipei County. In addition, the party will hold a big protest titled "Anti-corruption, Anti-rottenness and Anti-insider trading," on Nov. 27, the last weekend before the elections, to protest against what it calls the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) corruption. Responding to the KMT's plans, the DPP has decided to launch a nationwide march on the same day to promote its own candidates and denounce the KMT's accusations.
PHOTO: CHEN TSE-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
■ TRANSPORTATION
CKS prepares for A380
Taipei's international airport will be upgraded to accommodate the world's largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, Taiwan radio reported yesterday. "We have designated the D6 parking area for A380 jets. We need to reinforce the runways and import larger baggage conveyors," an official at the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, told the Broadcasting Corporation of China. "The project will cost NT$100 million (US$3 million) and will be completed next year," said the official. The double-deck A380 can carry 555 passengers. Taiwanese airlines have not placed any orders for the A380, but foreign airlines' A380s are expected to begin landing at CKS airport in the next few years. Airbus will continue A380 test flights with four prototypes through the end of next year and plans to deliver the first A380 to Singapore Airlines in November next year.
■ SOCIETY
Remembrance event set
The Taiwan Prisoners of War (POW) Camps Memorial Society in cooperation with the British Trade and Cultural Office (BTCO) in Taipei are holding the annual Remembrance Weekend Event on Nov. 19 and 20 this year, with four former POWs returning to Taiwan to attend the event. The event is held every year in November near Remembrance Day (Nov. 11) to pay tribute to the veterans who died during the two world wars. The event also highlights the story of the former allied POWs who were held captive on Taiwan and forced to work as slaves by the Japanese in 15 POW camps between August 1942 and September 1945. In 1997, the Kinkaseki Taiwan Prisoner of War Memorial at Chinguashi was established and a memorial service is held on the site of the former POW camp every year with POWs returning to take part in the event. The event is open to the public and bus transportation is available. Contact Emily Chen at the BTCO to make a reservation (Emily.Chen@fco.gov.uk).
■ SOCIETY
Euro Xmas event planned
The eleventh annual Christmas Bazaar held by Taipei European School's (TES) Parent Support Council will take place on Nov. 19 at the TES campus in Shihlin. The event will run from 10am to 4pm, and will offer local Taiwanese and international communities the opportunity to come together and celebrate the festive season. TES, composed of the German, British and French schools, hopes the event will expand and share international culture with the Taiwanese community.
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,