■ HEALTH
Sliced fruit not clean
The Consumers' Foundation urged the government yesterday to step up measures to check ready-to-eat, sliced fresh fruit sold at markets after tests showed that 84 percent of the products failed to meet safety standards. Foundation chairman Cheng Jen-hung (程仁宏) said that researchers from the nonprofit group had purchased 25 packs of sliced fruit wrapped either in styrofoam or plastic bags in June. Cheng said the tests showed that none of the products contained artificial sweeteners, bleaching agents, staphylococcus aureus or E. coli. However, 21 of the samples fell short of the Department of Health's hygiene requirements, with an aerobic plate count in excess of 100,000/g.
■ FOOD
Stinky tofu operator fined
Stinky tofu, a delicacy loved by some and detested by others, finally wore out its welcome in a neighborhood. Environmental authorities received the high court's permission on Monday to fine a suburban Taipei restaurant for exceeding the stench limit by three times, a county official said yesterday. After measuring the stench around the Kuang Tou Lao restaurant and receiving 16 complaints since April last year, Taipei County's Environmental Protection Bureau fined the outdoor restaurant NT$100,000 (US$3,000). "The stench level was just too much, and people were unhappy about it," a bureau official said. The owner of Kuang Tou Lao had protested against the fine, calling it too steep for a small business, Huang said. Nevertheless, the owner vowed to reduce the stench.
■ PUBLIC WORKS
Reservoir behind schedule
The Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) urged the Ministry of Economic Affairs on Monday to ensure that the Tsengwen Reservoir's water diversion project be completed by 2013. Tsengwen is the largest reservoir in Chiayi Country, with an effective storage capacity of 596 million cubic meters. However, its limited catchment area, totaling 481km2, is insufficient to provide enough water to fill the reservoir, CEPD officials said. Although the government has earmarked NT$21.29 billion since 2004 for a project to divert water from the Laonung Stream (荖濃溪), some townships have been reluctant to provide the needed land for the project. Council officials called on the ministry to intensify negotiations with decision-makers in the townships to speed up the project.
■ SOCIETY
Charity donor numbers grow
World Vision Taiwan, a Christian relief organization, said yesterday that its number of local sponsors has reached the 100,000 mark, and that these sponsors had helped more than 130,000 underprivileged children at home and in 29 other countries. World Vision Taiwan was established 43 years ago, but it did not begin to raise funds locally until 1985. The organization told 28-year-old Hsieh Chin-mei (謝錦湄) that she was its 100,000th donor. While considering herself lucky to have been singled out for the honor, Hsieh urged others to join the organization's child sponsorship program by skipping one or two meals a month or by reducing their personal spending. Hsieh joined the child sponsorship program after reading the book, There Is No Me Without You. The book describes how Mrs. Haregewoin Teferra, a middle-class Ethiopian widow, turned her home into a refuge for hundreds of orphaned children with AIDS.
■ CRIME
Taiwanese nabbed in scam
Malaysian police have arrested seven Taiwanese nationals over an international mobile phone text messaging scam, a senior police officer said yesterday. Six Taiwanese men and one woman were detained for questioning on Monday in Georgetown, northwestern Penang State, the senior police officer handling the case said. "They were picked up after several months of investigation," said the officer, who did not wish to be named. "We hope with their detention, the SMS [text message] scam ring has been busted," he said. The Star newspaper reported yesterday that Malaysians had been conned out of about 35 million ringgit (US$10 million) after they responded to text messages telling them they had won some money and were urged to gamble further. About 40 people, mostly Malaysians, were also arrested in connection with the scam, the Star reported. It said that the crime ring running the operation was based in Hong Kong or Taiwan.
■ POLITICS
Lien Chan heads to China
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) headed for China yesterday on a private visit, KMT officials said. Lien, accompanied by his wife, will transfer in Hong Kong en route to China. Prior to his departure from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Lien declined to answer questions from reporters regarding a local newspaper report claiming that Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) had sent a letter to KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in which he voiced his objection to a KMT campaign aimed at holding a referendum on the country's UN bid.
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