WEATHER
Temperatures to drop
A cold front moving across the nation will send temperatures plunging to a low of 9°C in northern and central Taiwan by early this morning, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. All areas of the country are expected to experience a sharp drop in temperature from yesterday until this afternoon, the bureau said. After that, temperatures in regions north of the Chiayi area are expected to rise to between 15°C and 18°C, the bureau said. The cold weather will last until Friday, with a small chance of rain and snow in the mountainous areas of country, according to the bureau.
TRAVEL
Canada raises work quota
More Taiwanese will be able to take a working holiday in Canada next year after Ottawa raised the quota for Taiwanese participation in the program from 700 to 1,000, the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei (CTOT) said in a statement yesterday. “The Canadian Trade Office in Taipei is pleased to announce that we have increased our quota for the 2011 International Experience Canada initiative to 1,000 for Taiwan,” the office said. Taiwan and Canada signed an agreement earlier this year to launch the working holiday program on July 1. Under the program, people aged 18 to 35 from the two countries are allowed to travel and work in each other’s country for up to one year. The original annual quota of 200 was raised to 700 on July 27 because of an enthusiastic response from local youth. CTOT said it would be accepting applications for the program postmarked on or after Jan. 10. Taipei has signed working holiday agreements with six countries — Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Germany and Japan.
BUSINESS
Foodies swap ideas
Food business operators from Taiwan and the US exchanged ideas on how to break into each other’s market on the opening day of the Gourmet Taiwan International Conference in Taipei yesterday. The opening ceremony was attended by more than 200 participants, including a group of 30 people from the US engaged in the food and hotel sectors, said the ROC-USA Business Council, the main organizer of the four-day conference. Chen Fei-lung (陳飛龍), executive supervisor of the business council, said he hoped that with the support of the government, Taiwanese foods and food businesses would be able to go international. Working with overseas compatriots and exploring global markets will be a positive force for the Taiwanese food industry because more jobs and business opportunities will be created, he said. The conference will include a series of keynote speeches and Taiwanese food business operators will have the opportunity to hold discussions with their counterparts from the US.
POLITICS
Kaohsiung officials resign
Senior Kaohsiung City Government officials yesterday resigned en masse to allow Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) to appoint her new administrative team for the soon-to-be-created Greater Kaohsiung municipality. A total of 24 political appointees, including Deputy Mayor Lee Yung-te (李永得), stepped down while Chen promised to give talents from Kaohsiung County equal opportunities to serve in the Greater Kaohsiung Government. After the merger of the city and county is completed on Dec. 25, Greater Kaohsiung will become the nation’s second-largest administrative municipality. Chen said that age, gender and expertise would be key factors in choosing staffers.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Tibetans to walk 400km
Exiled Tibetans in Taiwan will start to walk from the north to the south of the island on Friday to raise public awareness of China’s suppression of their homeland. The 13-day event will be part of the “Walk for Tibet” global campaign aimed at “sharing our message of world peace, human rights and the Tibetan struggle for independence,” the organizers said. Jigme Norbu, nephew of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and son of the late Taktser Rinpoche, who supported Tibetan independence, will join the activity, Regional Tibetan Youth Congress Taiwan chairman Tashi Tsering said in a statement on Monday. The walk in Taiwan will cover more than 400km and 10 counties.
CHARITY
PBF to hold charity sale
The personal belongings of Taiwanese baseball celebrities will go on sale at a charity bazaar this week to raise money for premature babies, event organizer Premature Baby Foundation (PBF) said on Monday. Though national health insurance subsidizes between 80 and 90 percent of the medical care expenses for premature babies, some families still find it hard to afford extra treatment and counseling services that are not reimbursed by the insurance system, PBF president Lee Hung-chang (李宏昌) said. “We hope to raise public awareness about the needs of families with premature children through the sale,” Lee said. Yuki Huang, the mother of two premature babies born at 28 and 26 weeks respectively, said she was thankful for the financial support offered by the foundation. “Preemie parents have constant doubts about the babies’ well-being after being discharged from hospital,” said Huang, whose worries eased after enrolling in the foundation’s free follow-up program.
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,