The government will build 50 athletics centers, 20 sports parks and a nationwide network of cycling paths over the next four years as part of its efforts to encourage people to choose healthier lifestyles.
Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琪) made the remarks on Wednesday after President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) meeting with Ministry of Transportation and Communications and Sports Affairs Council officials.
“The two agencies have come up with plans for building new athletics centers and nationwide cycling paths,” Wang said.
Multifunctional sports centers will be built in 39 cities and townships with populations of 150,000 or more and in 11 villages with populations of less than 150,000.
“The sports centers will be equipped with all sorts of modern exercise facilities and devices, such as treadmills and cross trainers,” Wang said.
For rural villages or townships that do not meet the requirements for a sports center, the government will help build new sports parks or renovate existing ones, he said.
The idea of building athletics centers and sports parks around the country comes from Ma’s experience in sports infrastructure development when he was mayor of Taipei, Wang said.
The ministry will help local governments develop five cycling trail models in Taipei, Ilan, Hualien and Taitung counties, he said.
To encourage eco-tourism, Wang said the ministry would work with local governments to integrate railway, highway and cycling path networks by developing a system of connections and transfers.
The development project will be carried out between next year and 2012, the ministry said.
Wang said Ma also wanted to see a certification system for professional cycling tour guides.
“The proposed accreditation system is not aimed at requiring cyclists to undergo national examinations to obtain a license, but at helping cycling fans gain access to professional guides in the field,” Wang said.
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,