■ FAIR TRADE
Condom hairbands?
A woman complained that the hairbands she bought from a department store in China were made with condoms, a newspaper reported yesterday. The Taichung woman, surnamed Hsu, bought three packets of hairbands for 6 yuan (US$0.80) from a store in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, last year, the Apple Daily reported. Hsu began to use the hairbands recently, but found that they snapped after being used two or three times and made her scalp itchy. When Hsu tore open the dark velvet covering the elastic band, she found that it looked like a cut-up condom. Hsu has asked the Taichung City Government to convey her complaint to Chinese authorities.
■ POLITICS
Ma voters in US on the way
At least 2,200 supporters of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in the New York area will return to Taiwan next month to vote, a source said on Sunday. The supporters from the states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are expected to return to Taiwan in six groups beginning on March 14 for the election on March 22, a group spokesperson said. A ceremony was held at a Chinese restaurant in Flushing in New York on Sunday evening, where Ma Ke-jen (馬克任), a New York-based KMT adviser; Yu Chin-shan (于金山), a chairman-elect of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in New York; and Huang Ying-han (黃英漢), chairman of the Taishan Chinese Clan Association, presented supporters' flags -- with the KMT emblem printed on them -- to leaders of the 2,200 supporters.
■ GOVERNMENT
Web site finally offline
The Ministry of Education yesterday apologized to the public after one of its Web sites was hacked and laced with thousands of pornographic pictures for nearly a month before action was taken. The pictures reportedly dominated the Web site, which contained videos of recommended exercise routines for students. The Department of Physical Education has shut down the site, saying that the oversight was the result of a shortage of staff. Department head Lin Jer-hung (林哲宏) said the Taipei Physical Education College had been commissioned to maintain the link that contains the video clips. "It could be that the [college's] students in charge of the link were not familiar on how to maintain a Web site. The ministry will double its efforts to make sure there is no repeat [of the incident]," he said.
■ SOCIETY
228 walkers arrive Thursday
Aides of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday invited the public to mark the 61st anniversary of the 228 Incident on Thursday, when two groups walking along the east and west coasts meet in Taipei. The group on the west coast began on the nation's southern tip on Lunar New Year's Eve. The Taiwan Association of University Professors launched the second group in Taimali Township (太麻里), Taitung County, on Jan. 16. The western group will enter Taipei from Sijhih (汐止) in Taipei County and the eastern group from Banciao (板橋) in Taipei County. They will meet at the Zhongshan Soccer Stadium, where a rally will be held to commemorate the 1947 massacre. The theme of the event is "Love, trust and praying for Taiwan." Other than Hsieh and his running mate Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), no politicians have been invited to the event.
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,