■CRIME
US court to try Taiwanese
A Taiwanese man has been extradited from Hong Kong to New York to face charges of smuggling military equipment from the US to Taiwan, including infrared laser aiming devices for rifles and a fighter pilot helmet. Peng Yen-ching (彭彥清) was arrested in Hong Kong in December. He could face more than 20 years in prison if convicted. He made a brief appearance in federal court in Manhattan on Monday. A defense lawyer did not return a telephone message seeking comment. A New York man has pleaded guilty to smuggling charges in the case and has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.
■OLYMPICS
Mayor visits medalist
Tainan Mayor Hsu Tain-tsair (許添財) paid a visit yesterday to the nation’s first medalist in the Beijing Olympic Games — Chen Wei-ling (陳葦綾), who won a bronze medal in the women’s 48kg-class weightlifting competition. Her performance marked a significant improvement over her 11th place finish in the 2004 Athens Olympics. Hsu met Chen at her home and presented her with a red envelope containing a cash award of NT$20,000, plus Koji pottery artwork. He said the city government would present her with a citizen of honor award in recognition of her achievement. Chen will be the 13th resident of Tainan to receive such an award. After winning the bronze, Chen also received news that National Taiwan Sport University would hire her as an instructor.
■TOURISM
Penghu to discuss casinos
A total of 38 forums will be held around Penghu County this fall to gather the opinions of locals on the development of casinos. The forums, scheduled to be held between next Tuesday and Sept. 22 at various locations around Penghu, including the rural islets of Jibei (吉貝), Hujing (虎井) and Niaoyu (鳥嶼), are targeted at reaching a consensus of all Penghu residents on casino development in their hometown, officials from the Penghu County Tourism Bureau said. Eight academics from National Penghu University and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology are expected to join county officials and representatives of Penghu-based travel agencies at the forums to inform Penghu residents of the advantages and disadvantages of developing tourist casino hotels in Penghu. The forums came after Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) announced at a Cabinet meeting on Thursday that decriminalizing gambling in offshore areas of the country would be one of the administration’s goals.
■LABOR
Direct hire pact inked
Taiwan and the Philippines have signed guidelines for a direct employment program, Tsai Meng-liang (蔡孟良), the director of the Council of Labor Affairs’ Foreign Workers’ Administration said yesterday. Tsai said the nation’s representative to the Philippines, Donald Lee (李傳通), and his Philippine counterpart, Antonio Basilio, inked the agreement in Cebu late last month. Under the guidelines, direct employment will be expanded to cover not only caregivers, but also foreign workers in the manufacturing and construction industries, Tsai said, adding that application procedures would be simplified. The countries will also collaborate to reduce the number of repatriated and runaway workers, Tsai said, adding that as of the end of last month, 2,700 Filipino workers were reported missing. About 85,000 Filipinos, out of a total 358,000 foreign workers, are employed in Taiwan, the Ministry of the Interior said.
■DIPLOMACY
Feng assigned to Japan
Former ambassador to the Dominican Republic John Feng (馮寄台) will be the nation’s new representative to Japan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said last night. MOFA said that Feng was familiar with Japan as he attended elementary and high school there as his father was also a diplomat. He later attended graduate school at Harvard University and went on to become one of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) most-trusted diplomats. Feng’s appointment to Japan reflects the fact that Ma values the relationship between Taiwan and Japan, the ministry said.
■DIPLOMACY
SEF chairman to visit Japan
Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) is scheduled to travel to Japan on Monday to give a series of speeches on the government’s cross-strait policy and the prospect for relations between Taiwan and Japan. Chiang will make the visit at the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in an attempt to allay Tokyo’s concern over the effects of warming relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait as a result of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) policies toward China, informed ministry sources said.
■TOURISM
TRA launches cruise trains
The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) is working to launch regular runs of “cruise liner-style” trains next month on three rail lines that pass through scenic areas of Taiwan, the TRA deputy director-general said yesterday. Chang Ying-huei (張應輝) said the TRA’s first “cruise train” attracted a full train of passengers for a one-day sightseeing tour on the Hualien-Taitung Line on Aug. 11. Encouraged by the popularity, the TRA plans to open one cruise train everyday from Monday to Thursday.
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,