■ POLITICS
Bolton to visit Taipei
Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton will visit Taiwan in the middle of this month at the invitation of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. Bolton has been a staunch supporter of Taiwan, meeting with first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) in Washington in 2002 in his official capacity as then-undersecretary for arms control and international security. He also expressed his support for Taiwan to join the UN at a congressional hearing on his appointment as undersecretary in 2001. He visited Taiwan twice in the spring of 2000 to witness the presidential election and President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) inauguration.
■ ENTERTAINMENT
Tap festival opens in Taipei
Taipei City's tap festival kicks off today, with shows and classes offered by well-known dancers from around the world. The festival, organized by the Taipei Arts Promotion Association, will run through Aug. 14. Barbara Duffy and Van Porter from the US, Mandy Petty from England and Keiji Ichino from Japan are among the foreign tappers participating in the festival. A tap contest will be held on Aug. 11 at the Taipei Cultural Center. Petty, Ichino and local groups, including Tapwalker, will perform Sleepless Tap at 7:30pm on Aug.14 at the City Stage next to the center. Free tickets for the show will be available starting at 2:30pm that day at the stage. For further information, call 02-2382-6971 or visit the Web site www.taptaipei.blogspot.com.
■ HEALTH
DOH approves genechips
Locally developed genechips capable of detecting human papillomavirus (HPV) and speeding up HPV genotyping were approved for sale by the Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday. The HPV detection genechips, with the brand name "Easychip HPV Blot," were developed about two years ago by a biotech firm associated with King Car Food. "Easychip HPV Blot" genechips are capable of identifying the genotypes of 15 of 17 high-risk types of HPV via a polymerase chain reaction-based method. Such virus types have been implicated in cervical cancer, which must be treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy and radical surgery, a company source said.
■ CULTURE
Street art symposium set
The Kaohsiung County Government will hold a street art symposium from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2 and has invited French street artists to share their experiences with their Taiwanese counterparts. Elodie Presles, chief executive officer of France's national street art center, and two teams of French street artists will be invited to the three-day event, the officials said. Interested performers can register for the event through Aug. 10, officials said. Kaohsiung County committed itself to developing street art performances last year, and it has issued 104 performing licenses since then, officials said. Street performers' direct interaction with passers-by on streets, at subway stations and at other public facilities brings the art closer to the public, the officials said.
■ CRIME
Malaysian nabbed for drugs
A Malaysian man was arrested on Thursday at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport after officials found 35,000 nimetazepam tablets -- a hypnotic drug -- in his luggage. Lim Swee-chye, 29, was about to leave on a Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong when Investigation Bureau agents and customs officials asked to check his luggage. An official said 9.25kg of nimetazepam tablets had been hidden in eight bags of corn chip snacks in Lim's luggage.
■ SOCIETY
Tunnel pileup injures 34
A five-vehicle pileup on a northbound section of the No. 3 Freeway in Taipei County injured 30 children and four adults yesterday morning. The accident occurred at 9:25am in the Chungho Tunnel when two buses that had reduced their speed after entering the tunnel were rear-ended by two buses chartered by Kid Castle Kindergarten in Sanhsia Township (三峽). The buses carrying the children were in turn hit from behind by a container truck. A total of seven teachers and 54 children from the school were heading for the Taipei Zoo. One bus drivers suffered a broken leg, the others who were hurt had minor head and shoulder injuries. They were sent to four different hospitals in Taipei County for treatment. The accident caused a 4km traffic jam and traffic did not return to normal until around noon.
■ SOCIETY
Fathers put happiness first
Approximately 90 percent of fathers in Tainan City said the happiness of their family was their single greatest achievement, a survey released yesterday showed. The survey of 851 fathers was conducted by the city's family education center from June 10 to June 30 in order to mark Father's Day, which is next Wednesday. More than 90 percent of respondents were willing to make an effort to maintain their marriage and nearly 80 percent said that they would choose their wives again if given the opportunity to reconsider their marriage partner.
■ DIPLOMACY
Representative offers aid
Deputy representative to Japan Lo Kun-tsan (羅坤燦)visited the Niigata Prefecture government yesterday to express concern for those affected by a July 16 earthquake that killed 11 people. Lo presented Niigata Deputy Governor Kazuo Jinbo with a ?5 million (US$41,960) donation. The 6.8 quake injured more than 1,800 people and destroyed hundreds of houses.
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