■ POLITICS
New staff take a bow
The Cabinet yesterday announced the new chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) and vice minister for the Ministry of Transportation and Communications. Deputy Cabinet Secretary General Chen Mei-ling (陳美伶)held a press in the afternoon to introduce Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) as the new council chairman and Cheng Ching-chun (陳景峻) as the new vice minister. Chen Ming-tong is a professor at National Taiwan University's Graduate Institute of National Development. Chen Mei-ling said that it would take time to process the new MAC chief's paperwork because he was a professor, but that both men were expected to take office sometime this week.
■ CONSTRUCTION
FTC warns against hoarding
The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) is keeping an eye out for individuals or companies suspected of hoarding sand and gravel to manipulate prices, officials said yesterday. The sand and gravel market has already been feeling the effect of China's decision last month to limit the amount of gravel exported to this country. China's quasi-official Economic and Trade Exchange Association for the Two Sides of the Straits has yet to reach any consensus with the Taiwan External Trade Development Council to resolve the issue, commission officials said. They said some traders and companies have attempted to hoard local or imported sand and gravel in an attempt to manipulate prices. Eleven sand and gravel companies in central Taiwan were fined by the commission last year for hoarding, the officials said. Hoarders are subject to fines ranging from NT$50,000 to NT$25 million, they said.
■ DIPLOMACY
Health minister visits
Sao Tome and Principe Minister of Health Arlindo Vincente de Assuncao Carvalho arrived in Taipei yesterday for a four-day visit to discuss medical exchanges, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said. During his stay, Assuncao Carvalho, accompanied by Camelia Neto de Barros, a counselor of his health ministry, will meet with health officials and visit the Center for Disease Control to discuss malaria-control efforts, a ministry spokesman said. They will also visit the National Defense Medical Center, the Tri-Service General Hospital, the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation and the International Cooperation and Development Fund, as well as Taipei 101. The spokesman said Carvalho had held several important positions in his country, including director of health for the north region, before being health minister last April. Barros used to be the director of the National Health Education Center and a consultant for the UN Children's Fund.
■ FISHERIES
Virus-resistant grouper bred
The Fisheries Research Institute has nurtured virus-free and virus-resistant grouper fry. After two years of research, specialists from the institute have produced "clean" grouper fry using a genetic method and have "screened" successful small fry with an enzyme-examination technology called PCR. The artificial breeding method was coupled with enhanced nutrition, a higher-grade sterilization of the breeding environment and a sterilized "egg-washing" process, researchers said. Viruses have infected more than 20 species of fish in Japan, South Korea, the US, China and Taiwan since 1990, with groupers being most affected, the researchers said.
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,