■ SOCIETY
'Guide dog diplomacy'
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will launch "guide dog diplomacy" at the end of this month that will include receiving guide dogs and related technical assistance from several nations, the ministry's non-governmental organization department announced yesterday. Department Deputy Director Chiang Kuo-jiang (江國強) said the nation has more than 50,000 visually impaired people, but only about 20 guide dogs, with only two organizations that train dogs to become guide dogs. The scheme will see local guide dog associations receive assistance from similar bodies in Japan, South Korea, the US, the UK, Denmark and Norway, Chiang said.
■ DIPLOMACY
Chen congratulates Barrow
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) congratulated Belize's new Prime Minister Dean Barrow on his election, adding that he looked forward to strengthening ties between the two nations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. Barrow, a centrist who ran on an anti-graft platform, was sworn in as the Caribbean island nation's prime minister on Friday after the former opposition United Democratic Party won a majority of seats in the legislature on Thursday. Chen sent a congratulatory note to the winners after the victory was announced on Thursday. Barrow has affirmed on numerous occasions that he will continue to foster Belize-Taiwan ties under his leadership. Belize and Taiwan forged ties in 1989 and the Caribbean country has been a staunch supporter of Taiwan's bids to join various international organizations.
■ ENVIRONMENT
Tree planting on Valentine's
To mark Valentine's Day this year, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) is inviting foreign residents to show their love not only for their significant others, but also for the Earth by planting trees to fight global warming and offset their carbon footprint. The tree planting event, "Leave Your Roots in Taiwan," will be held at the National Taiwan Normal University Linkou campus at 2pm tomorrow. Free shuttle buses are available at 12:30pm at the East 3 Gate at Taipei Railway Station, the main entrance of National Central University [No. 300, Jhongda Rd, Jhongli City, Taoyuan County] and in front of the International Cooperation and Development Fund [No. 9, Lane 62, Tianmu West Rd, Taipei], and 12:50pm in front of the EPA building [No. 83, Sec. 1, Zhonghua Rd, Zhongzheng District, Taipei]. To sign up for the event, log on to www.epa.gov.tw, or call Jenny Chien at 02-2311-7722 ext. 2752.
■ CRIME
Robber runs off with feces
A group of women giggled and laughed when one of their peers was robbed yesterday because the robber did not get away with any valuables but rather a pile of dog feces. A local newspaper reported how a man on a scooter grabbed some scrunched up newspaper from a woman's hand while she was walking her basset hound in a Pingtung City park. A policeman told the newspaper that he saw a group of women laughing when he was patrolling the park. When he asked them what was so funny, one of them replied she had been robbed but there was no need for alarm because what the robber had taken was a bundle of wrapped dog feces that she was going to dispose of when she found a trash can.
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