■ CRIME
FAKE MONKS ARRESTED
The National Immigration Agency said yesterday police had arrested 12 Chinese men for posing as Buddhist monks to swindle money. Wearing monk robes, the Chinese raised about NT$1 million (US$33,000) during their 10-day stay in Taiwan, the agency said, adding that similar tactics had been used in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. The agency said the suspects paid a straw company in Shenzhen in China’s Guangdong Province for false work certificates and then visited Taiwan under a trade exchange program.
■ CRIME
TAICHUNG TOUTS PROGRESS
Deputy Taichung Mayor Hsiao Chia-chi (蕭家旗) said yesterday that although the city has the highest crime rate in the country, it has also seen the biggest improvement. Hsiao made the remarks after the National Police Agency announced countrywide crime rates for last year showing that Taichung City had the highest crime rate for the fifth consecutive year. The figures took into account violent crime, burglary, theft, extortion, assault and fraud. Taichung had the highest burglary rate and highest rate of motorcycle thefts and robberies. “In the first six months of this year, the number of criminal cases dropped by 23 percent from the same period last year. The improvement was also the biggest in the nation,” Hsiao said. The installation of monitoring systems at major intersections has had a positive effect on Taichung’s crime rate, he said.
■ AVIATION
PLANE TO GET LICK OF PAINT
The Ministry of National Defense said yesterday the presidential Boeing 737-800 would be repainted in March next year, but at no extra cost to the taxpayer. The nation’s one and only presidential plane used to be painted in the air force’s colors — white with blue stripes on top — but in April 2006 the jet was given a green underside and a white top with red and blue stripes, causing critics to say the Air Force was flattering then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) by using Democratic Progressive Party colors. Air Force Headquarters issued a press release on Monday saying the planned color change had nothing to do with the president’s political affiliation. Ministry spokeswoman Major General Lisa Chi (池玉蘭) told a press conference yesterday that China Airlines technicians would carry out a detailed “C-check” on the plane, and to do so the paint had to be removed. After the examination, the air force will make at least three proposals for a new color scheme. Since removing the paint was part of the check, no additional cost would be incurred, she said. The Air Force estimates that the new color scheme will cost around NT$3 million (US$100,000).
■ CULTURE
DANCE COMPETITION PLANNED
The 2008 Mongolian and Tibetan Folk Dance Competition will take place from Aug. 21 to Aug. 22 at the National Taiwan University of Arts. Lai Hsiu-feng (賴秀峰), president of the National Dance Association of the Republic of China, said entries would be accepted until Aug. 12 and 20 prizes totaling NT$700,000 would be awarded in two categories. The Mongolian and Tibetan categories will be divided into group and individual competitions. The first-place winner in the group section will receive NT$100,000 cash, followed by NT$70,000 for second place and NT$50,000 for third place. Two group dance works selected as masterpieces will each be awarded NT$10,000. In the individual sections, the prizes are NT$50,000 for first place, NT$30,000 for second place and NT$20,000 for third.
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,