WEATHER
Tropical Storm formed
Low pressure systems that have affected the nation's weather over the past couple of days have developed into Tropical Storm Dianmu, the Central Weather Bureau reported last night. The tropical storm was centered off about 370km east of Taiwan at 8pm yesterday, the bureau said, adding that it was moving northward at 10kph.
SPORT
Hong Kong teen wins race
A young Hong Kong man edged out swimmers from Taiwan and China to win this year's long-distance swim between Kinmen and China's coastal city of Xiamen yesterday. Ling Tin-yu, 17, one of four Hong Kong swimmers in the event, swam the 7km race in a time of one hour, 34 minutes, two seconds, reaching the finish line three seconds ahead of 21-year-old Taiwanese student Pan Kai-wen. Lin Yang from China finished third, another two seconds back. Hong Kong's Natasha Tang, 18, was the fastest female swimmer in the event. This year's Kinmen-Xiamen long-〝distance swimming competition brought together 90 swimmers from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Macau.
EDUCATION
French program available
The French government will soon select 10 gifted senior high school math and physics students to attend next year's Classes Preparatoires aux Grandes Ecoles (CPGE), a two-year pre-university course in French, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The ministry said the students who are selected will receive free tuition for two years, sponsored by the French government. The ministry will provide the airfare. The program is open to high school seniors with excellent grades in math and physics who have received a recommendation from their school principals. They will also be judged on a math test they will write in either English or French (to be chosen by the student) on Sept. 26. Students who are interested in applying can register from Sept. 8 to Sept. 10. Detailed program information (in Chinese) can be found on the Web site of the ministry's Department of Secondary Education.
SOCIETY
Middle-aged men protest
Scores of people protested outside the Executive Yuan yesterday to vent their indignation over the many men of advanced age who are jobless and appealed to the government to provide businesses with incentives that will encourage companies to hire people in older age brackets. Group leader Hsiao Chung-han said middle-aged unemployed people were the most disadvantaged group in the job market, because regardless of their educational backgrounds or work experience, they were the least sought-after group by manufacturers or service companies. The best jobs this group can find are as security guards, cleaners, household caregivers, or in direct sales, he said. Of the 37,000 job openings created by the government based on a temporary employment program following the 2008-2009 global economic downturn, only 12 percent were offered to people who were over 45, he said, and he urged authorities to create incentives to hire older workers.
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,