■ GOVERNMENT
No casinos yet: GIO
Until a high degree of consensus is reached among the public, the government will not allow the establishment of casinos anywhere in the country, Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) said yesterday. Discounting a news report that the government is planning to grant three licenses for casinos to be built in the offshore county of Penghu and the southern counties of Chiayi and Pingtung, Shieh said the government's plans for opening casinos were still on the drawing board and not expected to be implemented anytime soon. The Chinese-language United Daily News reported yesterday that the government's plans to establish casinos around the country would become clearer in October at the earliest, when the Council for Economic Planning and Development will have completed a draft bill governing the establishment and operations of casinos. According to the report, the government will initially issue licenses to enable three casinos to be established on Penghu and in Chiayi and Pingtung counties.
■ EARTHQUAKES
South shaken yesterday
A moderate earthquake struck the south early yesterday, officials said. No damage or injuries were immediately reported. The magnitude-5.7 quake hit at around 8:55am and was centered about 15km southwest of Taitung City, the Central Weather Bureau said.
■ TRAFFIC
Pedestrians get help
As the pedestrian death toll climbs this year, the Taipei City Government yesterday vowed to put greater effort into clamping down on drivers who fail to give right-of-way to pedestrians. The Taipei City Department of Transportation said that 15 pedestrians had been killed in traffic so far this year. To prevent such accidents, the department said drivers must always yield the right-of-way to pedestrians. Violators will be fined between NT$1,200 and NT$3,600, the department said. The Taipei City Police Department said some accidents had been caused by pedestrians violating traffic rules. Municipal police will clamp down on jaywalkers, who can be fined NT$360 for jaywalking.
■ ARCHEOLOGY
Pottery shards found
Pottery shards unearthed from a prehistoric site in southern Matsu suggest that human activity on the island could date to the fifth century, Matsu cultural officials said yesterday. An archeological team found fish bones and pottery shards, including a roof tile dated to between 420AD and 479AD.
■ POLITICS
Lu calls for discussion
Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday said the Democratic Progressive Party must hold more discussions on its proposed "normal country" resolution, which received mixed responses from pro-independence groups. Describing the proposal as "too deep," Lu said she spent quite some time reading it from start to finish. The party drafted the resolution in hopes of firing up support among grassroots voters. The resolution highlights the need to change the nation's name to "Taiwan" and establish a new constitution to rid itself of "the myth of the `one-China' constitutional framework."
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