■ SCIENCE
Taiwan vies for center
The Academia Sinica is lobbying the International Council for Science (ICSU) to set up its new office for integrated research on disaster risk in Taiwan. The ICSU is a non-governmental organization representing a global membership that includes both national scientific bodies and international scientific unions. “Taiwan is on the shortlist of three possible locations for the ICSU’s new disaster risk research office,” said Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲), a former Academia Sinica president who is scheduled to take over the ICSU presidency in 2011. “Taiwan stands a good chance,” he said. “As Taiwan often falls victim to earthquakes and other natural disasters, it would be a boon for us if the ICSU selects Taiwan as the base of its new strategic research project.” The ICSU’s integrated research on disaster risk is aimed at addressing the challenge of natural and human-induced environmental hazards and disasters, Lee said. Taiwan will be able to learn a lot about disaster prevention and response under the guidance of international academics and experts if the ICSU sets up the office here, he said.
■ POLITICS
Ma sorry over complaint
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday apologized for upsetting victims of Typhoon Morakot by telling his sister that they did not appreciate the effort he put into the relief work. At a book launch on Monday, Ma’s elder sister Ma Yi-nan (馬以南) said her brother had made the remark to her. Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said Ma was referring to an isolated case last month. Wang said a priest in Wutai Township (霧台), Pingtung County, sent out an e-mail from his stranded township asking for help. The e-mail passed through many hands before reaching Ma, Wang said, adding that the president telephoned the priest as soon as he received it. Ma visited Pingtung the following day, Wang said, and was surprised to find the priest had complained to an evening paper that he had come too late. Ma mentioned this in an e-mail to his sister, Wang said. Ma was complaining that the priest had misunderstood the situation and his comment was not targeted at all typhoon victims, Wang said.
■ ENTERTAINMENT
Patriotic PRC film must wait
The Chinese film Great Cause of China’s Foundation (建國大業) will not be shown in Taiwan this year as the maximum of 10 Chinese releases per year was reached in July, Frank Chen (陳志寬), director of the Government Information Office’s Department of Motion Pictures, said yesterday. Chen said the Taiwan branch of United International Pictures, which acquired the distribution rights of the film, inquired about importing the film in July and was told it could only apply for next year. The film is about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) defeat of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the Chinese civil war and the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
■ TOURISM
Guide training finished
Twenty-two students graduated yesterday from a “religious and cultural tour guide” training camp organized by Tainan County, with some graduates saying they had planned temple tour packages. The vocational training, offered by the Tainan Training Center, was the first of its kind, said Tsai Su-fen (蔡素芬), director of the center. “Training religious and cultural tour guides is a brand new approach,” Tsai said, adding that religious culture is an important tourist attraction, especially for Chinese visitors.
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,