■ HEALTH
Free liver screening
The Liver Disease Prevention and Treatment Research Foundation will offer free hepatitis screening tests at the Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital on Saturday. Hsu Chin-chuan (�?t), chief executive officer of the foundation, invited residents in the south yesterday to head to the hospital to get tested. Hsu said that liver disease is one of the main causes of death in Taiwan. He said that a higher ratio of people in remote areas suffer from liver cancer than in urban areas and that the survival rate among liver cancer patients in southern Taiwan was lower than in the north. One of the main reasons for this is “a lack of accurate knowledge concerning liver protection” in these areas, Hsu said, adding that many people suffering from liver problems in these areas often buy liver tonics and medicines advertised on unlicensed radio stations. Between 10,000 and 12,000 people die of liver cancer in Taiwan each year, with about 70 percent of the cases caused by hepatitis B and about 20 percent by hepatitis C, he said.
■ EVENTS
Cycling cup also about food
The 2008 Giant Cup Cycling Competition, scheduled to start on May 31, is not only an annual event for cycling lovers, but also for those who love local delicacies in Taichung County, Taichung County Government executive officer Su Guo-jyh said yesterday. The activity, now in its 14th year, will combine competition, food and scenery to attract cycling enthusiasts and food lovers. People can sign up for the 160km “Tachia-Kukuan Self-challenge Cycling Team” for a two-day, one-night event, he said. Participants will have a chance to taste famous local delicacies, such as butter cake and taro ice cream along the way, as well as experiencing an ecologically and environmentally friendly trip, he said. “For just NT$2,500, you can enjoy scenic views, hot springs and gourmet food along the way,” Su said.
■ SOCIETY
Taiwan photo relay posted
Photos of Taiwan taken by 190 photographers nationwide in a round-the-clock photo relay on April 26 have been posted on a blog, organizers said yesterday. The “24 hours in Taiwan” photographic activity gathered a number of pictures taken from all walks of life during one day, including some that show the production of tofu; vendors serving delicacies at night markets in the early hours; and a postman delivering mail early in the morning. Yang Chin-huango (楊錦煌), who initiated the activity, said a similar activity was held on Aug. 19, 1992, bringing together 192 photographers who recorded the lives of Taiwanese in the economic, political and social spheres. The photos can be viewed at www.wretch.cc/blog/yangphoto.
■ FOOD
Price of salt unchanged
Despite suffering from rising raw commodity prices and production costs, Taiyen (臺鹽), the only salt maker in the country, said yesterday it would not raise the price of salt. “Because of higher production costs, the company recorded a meager NT$47 million [US$1.54 million] in net profit last year, compared with NT$342 million in 2006,” Taiyen chairman Wu Chi-chang (吳啟章) said at a Legislative Yuan hearing. The company, which was privatized in 2003 as part of the nation’s commitments to the WTO, has faced serious competition from foreign imports of salt since 2004. Wu said the company’s low-price strategy, used to win back customers from its competitors, also led to shrinking revenues.
■ HEALTH
Cervical cancer testing low
While cervical cancer remains the second most common form of cancer among women in Taiwan, the screening rate is still low and the majority of Taiwanese women have little knowledge about the disease, the Formosa Cancer Foundation said yesterday. The foundation urged women to get both pap smear tests and the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to prevent the disease. Yuan Chiu-chung (袁九重), superintendent of the Taipei City Hospital for Women and Children, said that many women in Taiwan do not receive regular pap smear tests for cervical cancer because they feel shy about going to see a doctor. A survey conducted by the foundation among 1,092 women aged 16 or over found that 30 percent of the respondents did not know how to prevent getting cervical cancer, with 20 percent believing that without sexual experience, they will not get the disease.
■ AGRICULTURE
Program enrollment begins
Enrollment has opened for the Council of Agriculture’s (COA) popular “Wandervogel” program this year, offering 1,200 people between the ages of 18 and 35 a chance to experience farm life and to consider working in the agricultural sector. Since the program began in 2006 as part of the COA’s efforts to inject new blood into the aging agricultural population, the number of applicants has exceeded the number of places offered each year, COA officials said yesterday. Registration kicked off on Tuesday for seven “Wandervogel” camps at COA-run agricultural research and extension stations in Taoyuan, Miaoli, Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Taitung and Hualien, and for a fishery camp at the COA Fisheries Research Institute in Keelung.
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