■ Crime
Counterfeiter arrested
A 47-year-old man living in Tainan County was arrested on charges of counterfeiting Chinese banknotes and is being prosecuted. The Tainan County Station of the Bureau of Investigation said Huang Chao-sheng (黃朝生), who had been convicted of counterfeiting Chinese banknotes in June and sentenced to five years in jail by a district court, was again caught manufacturing the new version of the Chinese currency, which came out in September. Investigators raided Huang's residence early Thursday and found that he had turned the first and second floors of his home into a money-printing factory and was managing the whole production process by himself. The investigators seized 1 million yuan (US$124,000) in completed fake notes and more than half a million in semi-finished notes. They also confiscated three currency-printing machines, more than a dozen various other machines and computers. Tsai said the fake money was apparently intended to be supplied to buyers from smuggling rings for use during the Lunar New Year holiday.
■ Society
Flower show opens
With seven colorful landscape areas packed with flowers, the Taipei City Government invited the public to walk into an "Alice in Wonderland" world at the annual Taipei Flower Show, which kicked off yesterday at Daan Forest Park. The 10th annual flower show, held by the city government, attracts tens of thousands of people each year to experience the beauty of flowers. According to the city government's park and street lights office, the design of this year's show was inspired by the famous story Alice in Wonderland. The show runs through Jan. 23 at the Daan Forest Park. For more information, please visit pkl.tcg.gov.tw.
■ Agriculture
Farmland set aside
The Council of Agriculture has designated 2,000 hectares of fallow farmland for the growing of biomass crops including canola, soybeans and sunflowers next year, officials said yesterday. The farmland will be located in Yunlin, Chiayi, Tainan, Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties, and the crops will be used for the production of biodiesel, they said. While only 90 hectares of fallow farmland in Ilan, Yunlin and Tainan were selected this year to grow the crops on a trial basis, the council decided to expand the size to 2,000 hectares next year after the trial was successful, they said. They pointed out that farmers growing biomass crops will receive a subsidy of NT$60,000 (US$1,800) per hectare from the government.
■ Society
CEC warns on ID fraud
Those caught trying to use their old and new ID cards to vote twice in next year's elections will face criminal prosecution, the Central Election Commission (CEC) has warned. The CEC's warning came as the nation began issuing new ID cards on Wednesday, or the first renewal since 1986. The issuing of the new ID cards will run until Dec. 31 next year, the CEC said, adding that between now and then, there will be a by-election for legislators in Chiayi City and elections for borough chiefs, and Taipei and Kaohsiung mayors and councilors. As both versions of the ID card will be valid next year, the CEC is devising ways of preventing voter fraud. The CEC officials said that during the elections, voter name lists will indicate whether a person has had their old ID card replaced, and ballots will not be given to those having received their new cards but trying to vote with their old ones.
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,