ENTERTAINMENT
Harry Potter stars visit
British twins James Andrew Eric Phelps and Oliver Martyn John Phelps, who play the Weasley twins Fred and George in the Harry Potter movie series, yesterday met with fans in Taipei and attended the local premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — the seventh film in the series based on novels by British author J.K. Rowling. The film will open in movie theaters on Friday. The twins, who arrived on Monday, said they planned to sample quintessential Taiwanese delicacies during their stay. The twins, the first Harry Potter cast members to ever visit Taiwan, also visited the Taipei International Flora Expo, night markets, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and other tourist attractions.
DIPLOMACY
Bystrom given residency
A former Swedish representative received a permanent resident certificate from Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) at a function yesterday. Henrik Bystrom, former head of Exportradet Taipei, the Swedish Trade Council in Taiwan, was granted permanent residency in recognition of his contribution to the country, the National Immigration Agency said. Bystrom, who served as the de facto Swedish ambassador from 2001 to last year, had been previously honored for his efforts to boost exchanges and relations between the two countries. While in office, he helped in the signing of several important trade, economic and science and technology cooperation agreements. Expatriates who legally live in Taiwan for five years and stay for more than 183 days every year — which can be waived in certain cases — are allowed to apply for permanent residency, the immigration agency said.
ENTERTAINMENT
Directors team up for film
The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival executive committee launched a collaborative project yesterday to bring together 20 Taiwanese directors to make a film dedicated to the country and its people. The directors will be headed by committee chairman Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢), who is one of the country’s most renowned directors, the committee said. Each director will make a five-minute film featuring aspects of the country. The separate works will then be patched into a 100-minute film to be screened at next year’s festival, the committee said. It is the strongest directorial team in Chinese-language film-making history, the committe said. “When filming, I am happy. I am glad to be part of the project, no matter it is a long or a short film,” said Chang Tso-chi (張作驥), whose latest work When Love Comes (當愛來的時候) won 14 nominations in the 47th Taipei Golden Horse Film Awards. This year’s awards ceremony is scheduled to take place on Saturday.
DIPLOMACY
Ma touts EU visa waiver
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday that the country’s expected inclusion into the EU’s visa waiver program indicates that Taiwan is a cultured country. The European Parliament voted 559-40, with 13 abstentions, last Thursday in favor of visa-free status for Taiwanese visitors to 28 European countries. The proposal will have to clear the Council of the EU, most likely early next month, before it can take effect. Ma said that the visa-free status would mean more than just saving thousands of dollars in visa application fees. “Of greater significance is the image of the Republic of China as a cultured, law-abiding nation with high standards,” he said while receiving a Lions Club delegation.
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
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,
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