■ EDUCATION
Watching tuition hikes
A Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislator yesterday requested that the Ministry of Education serve as a watchdog while reviewing the tuition fee hike plans for the next academic year put forth by several local colleges and universities. Tseng Tsahn-deng (曾燦燈) made the call during a news conference held by the TSU legislative caucus. Thirty-eight colleges and universities recently put forward their plans to the ministry for a raise in tuition, he said, adding that several faculty members and many school facilities were substandard. In response to the suggestion, an education ministry official said the ministry would likely refuse to allow schools showing poor performance records to increase tuition, adding that the ministry could in fact request a reduction.
■ CRIME
Entertainers took drugs
The Banciao (板橋) District Prosecutors' Office yesterday confirmed media reports that a number of entertainers summoned to undergo drug screening had tested positive. The bureau, however, refused to release their names. Chinese-language newspapers including the Liberty Times (the sister paper of the Taipei Times) and the China Times yesterday reported that 10 entertainers, including popular singers Chang Chen-yue (張震嶽) and Bobby Chen (陳昇), had been tested for drugs and that the results came out yesterday. The Central News Agency quoted Chang as saying he had not taken drugs. Banciao prosecutors said they were continuing their investigation. Earlier this year, entertainers Suzanne Hsiao (蕭淑慎), Tuo Tsung-kang (庹宗康), Chu Chung-heng (屈中恆), Jung Hsiung (戎祥), Hung Chi-te (洪其德) were found to have used various drugs.
■ ENVIRONMENT
Agreement on dog droppings
The results of a survey by the Environmental Protection Administration released yesterday showed that approximately 96 percent of the public agreed that dog owners must pick up droppings while walking their dogs. The survey, conducted with 1,000 people, also found that close to 61 percent of respondents believed that the problem of pollution associated with dog droppings had improved since the administration launched an awareness campaign last year, while 39 percent had not seen any improvement. Last year's awareness campaign targeted seven cities. The administration said inspections are usually carried out early in the morning or late at night. Dog owners who fail in their obligations can be fined from NT$1,200 to NT$6,000.
■ ENERGY
Taipei City to cut energy bill
The Taipei City Government yesterday pledged to turn Taipei into an "energy-saving" city, setting an objective of saving NT$25 million (US$750,000) in energy costs within five years. All 415 municipal schools and organizations will be required to reduce their electricity consumption by 1 percent within the next five years, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said yesterday during a municipal meeting. The city government said annual electricity consumption in schools and municipal organizations is approximately 1.2 billion kilowatts per hour, equal to a NT$2.5 billion power bill. The energy-saving plan will require schools and organizations to reduce their energy consumption by 1.2 million kilowatts per hour, it said. The city government acknowledged it would be difficult to reach the goal, as the temperature rises every year.
■ GOVERNMENT
Chen to award medal
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), in keeping with tradition, will give former minister of national defense Lee Jye (李傑) a medal, the Presidential Office said yesterday. It is a tradition for the president to decorate the minister with the Order of Blue Sky and White Sun with Grand Cordon after the minister leaves office. Presidential Office Spokesman David Lee (李南陽) said Chen decided last week to honor Lee Jye with the Order of Brilliant Star, first class, but the date of the ceremony was still being arranged. Meanwhile, Lee Jye dismissed an article in yesterday's Chinese-language China Times that suggested something was amis. "The speculation is purely absurd and far from the truth," David Lee said, in response to a report entitled "Speculation mounts as A-bian faills to confer medal on Lee Jye."
■ GOVERNMENT
`Organic' reconsidered
The Council of Agriculture (COA) is mulling a proposal that would enable produce containing as much as 5 percent of the legal maximum limit for herbicides and pesticides to be legally sold as "organic" produce in the future. "We have to take into account that farmers might have small amounts of pesticides and herbicides drifting onto their lots even if they are scrupulous in every other respect," said head of the council's Agriculture and Food Agency Huang Yu-psai (黃有才). "The US has similar rules for organic produce." Predictably, consumers are not pleased with allowing any pesticides or herbicides in on food sold as organic, while producers say that with Taiwan's small farms, influence from neighbors are inevitable, Huang said. "We will consider all points of view at this point," he added.
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,