■ DEFENSE
Hawkeyes sent to US
The Ministry of National Defense said yesterday it had shipped two Hawkeye early warning aircraft to the US to be upgraded. The planes will be upgraded to a model similar to aircraft being used by the US Navy, and are expected to be returned late next year, the ministry said. “The upgrade will make fleet management more effective ... and satisfy our early warning combat needs in all types of weather,” it said in a statement. Four aircraft will be retrofitted, a process that is expected to cost NT$5.6 billion (US$175 million) and last three years, a defense official said.
■ BUSINESS
FTC fines driving schools
The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) yesterday fined 23 driving schools a total of NT$2.5 million for price-fixing. The privately run businesses are all located in Taichung City and county. The commission said the schools formed an alliance that has been controlling prices since the beginning of 2008. They also set up a cooperative fund. Schools that recruited more students contributed to the fund, which then paid schools with fewer students. The commission said that the mechanisms of the membership constituted price-fixing and therefore violated the Fair Trade Act (公平交易法). The commission ordered the alliance to disband and issued member schools fines ranging from NT$50,000 to NT$200,000 each.
■ ENVIRONMENT
Macaque feeding banned
The Kaohsiung City Council yesterday approved a ban on people feeding the Formosan macaques on Chaishan (柴山). The new regulation stipulates that anyone who feeds the monkeys could be fined up to NT$6,000, while anyone who reports a violator to the police may receive 20 percent of the fine. Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said the monkeys had lost the ability to forage for food on their own, leading to some of the macaques invading residential areas and harassing people. The ban will help preserve the mountain’s natural environment and prevent the monkeys from hurting people when seeking food, she said.
■ CULTURE
Aboriginal musical set
A musical about traditional Aboriginal mythology, featuring several reworked traditional Aboriginal tunes and dances, will be performed at the National Concert Hall in Taipei on Sunday evening, the Taipei Philharmonic Foundation for Culture and Education said yesterday. “Aboriginal cultures in Taiwan are quite unique and it is something we would like to introduce to as many people as possible,” Du Hei (杜黑), the foundation’s executive director, told a press conference yesterday. “I believe the musical on Sunday — with participation of hundreds of musicians and dancers — will be an astonishing show.” The performers include the Tjimur Dance Theatre, the Naruwan Choir and the Zuyun Music and Dance Troupe, along with the Taipei Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Aboriginal folk singer Kimbo Hu (胡德夫). information on the show can be found at www.tpf.org.tw/performances/performances_data.php?id=90 or by calling (02)2773-3691.
■ LABOR
CLA to inspect projects
The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) announced yesterday that it would carry out an inspection of labor at public construction projects with budgets of more than NT$200 million over the next two months. Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) also said yesterday that contractors must follow standard operating procedures and pay attention to every aspect of their projects because “the devil is in the details.”
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
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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