■ TRANSPORTATION
Authorites smell sabotage
Airport authorities were not ruling out sabotage after a toilet leak at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport that left a terminal floor covered in sewage, officials said on Monday. Members of the Control Yuan have started investigating the leak, which happened on Friday. The suspicions emerged after investigators found toilet brushes shoved down several toilets, Taoyuan Aviation Office spokesman Wei Sheng-chih (魏勝之) said. “We can’t rule out the possibility of sabotage,” he told reporters on Monday. An official at the airport suggested disgruntled workers could potentially be behind the leak. “There are various possible reasons that we suspect ... including a dispute between workers and management, but as the investigation is still under way, we can’t jump to any conclusions,” he said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not specify the nature of the dispute.
■SOCIETY
Scared visitors attack actors
Frightened theme park visitors have repeatedly attacked actors dressed in ghost costumes in a “haunted theater” attraction, the company said yesterday. The incidents have prompted Janfusun Amusement Park in Yunlin County to grant leave of absence or transfer for actors working at Horrorwood, which features scenes from 10 classic horror movies, a company spokeswoman said. A male employee in a zombie costume was slapped in the face by a man whose girlfriend had been scared out of her wits, she said. The man later said he wanted to find out whether the “ghost” was real or not. A female visitor hit another male worker in the private parts with an umbrella, the spokeswoman said. One female employee complained that male visitors often touched her hip, she said.
■DIPLOMACY
Official impeached for affair
The Control Yuan yesterday impeached Yang Chien-ping (楊建平), a National Security Bureau official stationed in Panama, over an extramarital affair, saying his behavior had undermined the country’s image. After admitting to having an affair in January, Yang received two major demerits and was removed from his position after Tu Mei-ying (杜美瑩), a Taiwanese living in Panama, showed the bureau intimate photographs of the pair. An investigation by the bureau concluded that Yang did not pass on classified information to Tu, nor was Tu working as a spy for China, and ruled that the case was purely an extramarital affair. The impeachment motion was passed by a vote of 10 to three.
■ TRANSPORTATION
Green transport promoted
The annual Taipei Car Free Day will be held on Monday, featuring various activities promoting green transportation that will continue until next month. Seeking to reduce the event’s impact on the public, the city’s Department of Transportation will not close roads to traffic and will replace a one-day bicycle-riding event with a series of activities to promote the use of public transportation, commissioner of the department Lo Shiaw-shyan (羅孝賢) said. The activities will include a competition using the “5284” online bus inquiry system from Monday through Sept. 18. The department will also send out “car-free cards” to people who pledge to use public transportation for at least one day per week. The cards will be distributed at various MRT stations from Aug. 22 to Sept. 12 and cardholders will enjoy discounts at major attractions such as the National Palace Museum and restaurants.
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,