A poll released yesterday revealed that nearly 66 percent of people think public safety in the past six months has either improved or stayed the same.
The poll, directed by the National Chung Cheng University Graduate Institute of Criminology, Yang Shu-lung (
"While 44 percent of respondents said public security had not changed in the six month period, 21 percent said it had improved slightly and 1 percent said good progress had been made," the survey said.
According to the survey, 63.7 percent of respondents considered the government's enforcement agencies had performed well in preventing crime and protecting public safety and property over the six month period.
The poll said that of the nation's three largest cities, Kaohsiung gave the government the least credit for improving public security.
The survey added that more than 93 percent of respondents support a recent police initiative to brand scooter engines and parts with identifying numbers in an attempt to make scooter disposal more difficult after theft.
The survey said more than 91 percent of respondents also support police rewards for people to report information on stolen scooters.
Police publish numbers of license plates of stolen scooters on their Web site and provide cash rewards for those that find them.
The survey said that the theft of scooters and cars has been rampant in the county and that those affected by vehicle theft have felt insecure or anxious because of it. If police can lower the rate of theft, people are likely to have a better impression of public security, the report concluded.
The survey added that the public gave little credit to the police's efforts to crack down on phone-fraud crime, with only 59 percent of the respondents satisfied with the results.
The survey concludes that since the phone-fraud crimes have often been committed in China, which makes policing more difficult, the government should enhance cooperation with Chinese authorities on telephone fraud.
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