DEFENSE
New frigates launched
The coast guard inaugurated two frigates yesterday to boost efforts to deter illegal fishing boats, mainly from China, officials said. One of the frigates, the 2,000 tonne Tainan, was put into service after a ceremony presided over by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in Greater Kaohsiung. The frigate, capable of cruising up to 12,070km, will be used to patrol waters around Taiwan and in the disputed South China Sea, the coast guard said. “Over the past two years, the government’s efforts have helped lead to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Ma said according to a statement from the coast guard. “[However,] the maintenance of security in waters around Taiwan has emerged as one of the most important tasks.”
PHOTO: CNA
LABOR
CLA supports extension
Council of Labor Affairs Minister Jennifer Wang (王如玄) yesterday reiterated her agency’s support for legislation that would extend the maximum length of time foreign laborers are allowed to work in Taiwan from nine to 12 years. Manufacturers and employers of foreign caregivers are among those eagerly anticipating an extension, Wang said. She said Taiwanese firms told her they would hire workers who had to return home after spending nine years here because their skills were mature. If foreign workers had the opportunity to stay in Taiwan longer and were able to contribute to the country’s economic development, “we would support this kind of direction,” Wang said. She said extending the maximum length of stay would not hurt domestic workers’ rights because the long-term migrant workers were already part of the foreign workforce import quota.
SOCIETY
Expo visitor wins air ticket
A Hsinchu resident yesterday received a round-trip air ticket between Taipei and Hong Kong, and a potted orchid when she became the 1 millionth visitor to the Pavilion of the Future at the Taipei International Flora Expo. The 25 year-old winner, surnamed Lin (林), was clocked in as the 1 millionth visitor at 2:10pm. She said it was her first visit to the expo and that she decided to see the Pavilion of the Future first because she was interested in green technology. Lin, who was attending the expo with her mother, said she would buy her mother a ticket so they could go to Hong Kong together.
CRIME
Fraud ring cracked
The Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday said it cracked a criminal ring made up of medical suppliers and hospitals that allegedly defrauded the National Health Insurance system of NT$2.3 million (US$79,223) by falsely reporting drug prices. Investigators seized accounting documents and files from eight pharmaceutical firms and 11 hospitals and clinics in Taipei, Taichung, Yunlin, Tainan and Kaohsiung, the office said. Fifty-one people were held for questioning, although 11 were later released on bail. Prosecutors alleged the companies and hospitals had been colluding since 2007 to make false health insurance claims. The hospitals paid low prices to the suppliers than they claimed in refunds from the health insurance system, prosecutors claimed, as well as hiding discounts and free drugs they received.
TRAVEL
Tourists treated for injuries
Five Taiwanese tourists who sustained minor injuries in a traffic accident in Hokkaido, Japan, have been discharged from hospitals after treatment, Taiwan’s representative office in Sapporo said yesterday. The tourists were hurt when a tour bus in which they were traveling overturned yesterday while trying to avoid an oncoming vehicle, the office said. They were part of a Taiwanese tour group that arrived in Hokkaido on Tuesday.
TRAVEL
CAL launches Wuhan flights
China Airlines (CAL) yesteday launched non-stop services between Taiwan and the city of Wuhan, its 16th destination in China. The first flight to the central China transportation hub took off from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport early yesterday. The airline is using Airbus A330-300s on the route and offering flights between the two every Wednesday and Saturday.
CRIME
Man sentenced to death
Yu Chih-wei (余智維), 25, was given a death sentence yesterday by the Taiwan High Court for killing his foster mother. The court ruling said Yu was adopted by a couple when he was five years old and that the couple raised him and treated him very well. The ruling said in order to please a 16-year-old girl surnamed Hu (胡) that he was dating, Yu borrowed money from loan sharks to buy a car. However, as the loan sharks asked Yu to pay his debts, Yu threatened his foster mother in an effort to get a property ownership document as security to apply for a bank loan. On March 28 last year, Hu used a scarf to strangle his foster mother, while Yu stabbed her 11 times because she refused to give him the document, the court found.
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