■ EDUCATION
English tests to be offered
The US-based Educational Testing Service (ETS) will begin offering English writing and speaking tests next month for enterprises in Taiwan in a drive to improve English skills, the Taiwan representative of the ETS Taiwan branch said yesterday. Wang Hsing-wei (王星威) held a press conference in Taipei to announce the new tests, which are part of the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) targeting working people, alongside tests in listening and reading. The new TOEIC tests will be available for group applicants in January and for individual applicants in August, with the examinees required to take the tests on a computer, according to the ETC office.
■ GOVERNMENT
Taipei takes over pools
The Taipei City Government took over the management of seven heated swimming pools in the city yesterday after a private company contracted to run the facilities shut them down a day earlier due to financial difficulties. Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) told reporters that the city government will safeguard the interests of Taipei residents and their right to use the facilities, based on provisions of the contracts between the city government and Eden Athletics. Hau said he has asked the Parks and Street Lights Office of the city government's Public Works Bureau to seek legal counsel to resolve the dispute. Eden Athletics was awarded contracts to run 14 swimming pools owned by the city government, including seven heated pools which remain open in winter. The company has run into financial difficulties recently and owes NT$20 million (US$617,650) in royalties to the Taipei City Government.
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,