■ CRIME
Corruption figures released
Public prosecutors have handled 3,700 corruption cases and prosecuted more than 9,600 people since the Ministry of Justice began an operation in July 2000 to crack down on organized crime and corruption, statistics released by the ministry showed yesterday. The statistics show that between July 2000 and last month, a total of 9,677 suspects involved in 3,731 cases were prosecuted for benefiting from illegal gains through corruption and related offenses, and that of this total, 2,043 had been sentenced to prison. The 9,677 indicted suspects include 532 senior government officials, 583 elected public officials, 1,718 middle-level government officials, 2,892 civil servants and 3,952 ordinary citizens.
■ SOCIETY
Runner featured in ads
A group of photographers with National Geographic Channels International yesterday began shooting a 30-second TV advertisement featuring the story of extreme-condition marathon runner Kevin Lin (林義傑), the Government Information Office said in a statement yesterday. The office has enlisted Lin to promote the country's international image as part of a promotional campaign following Lin's successful run across the Sahara Desert with an American and a Canadian in February. The photographers shot a scene at Cheng Yuan Senior High School in Taipei, where Lin studied, and the track-and-field team were also in the frame, the statement said. "We are happy to have Lin do this. He represents the spirit of passion, ambition, adventure, and perseverance," Deputy Government Information Minister William Yih (易榮宗) said.
■ SOCIETY
Mahjong competition begins
A qualifying round for the 2007 Mahjong World Championship began in Taipei yesterday, with 150 contestants taking part in the three-day competition. The competition is part of a series of regional qualifying tournaments in Asia, Europe and North America. The eight top placers will qualify for the semi-finals in June, in either Denmark or Japan. A total of 20 finalists will compete in the Mahjong World Championship in Chengdu, China, in November. GigaMedia Global Limited, a provider of online entertainment software and services, has secured five-year exclusive rights to co-host the world championship in conjunction with the World Mahjong Organization. The firm plans to hold a championship in Taipei within the next five years.
■ TOURISM
Number of visitors up
The number of visitors to Taiwan reached 881,292 in the first quarter of this year, marking a 2.59 percent year-on-year increase, statistics released by the Tourism Bureau showed yesterday. Japan remained the top source of visitors, while the number of visitors from South Korea showed the largest increase. Japanese made 306,898 visits in the first three months of the year, up 4.21 percent. Last month alone, the number of visitors from Japan hit a new single-month high of 120,599, up 10.18 percent from the previous year. Moreover, business and leisure visitors both increased considerably. Officials attributed the rise to a combination of factors, including Japanese companies traditionally organizing tours for their employees in March and various festivals including several colorful lantern exhibits held nationwide last month.
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,