TOURISM
Eco-friendly events unveiled
The Tourism Bureau yesterday said it will hold a series of events on the east coast to promote eco-friendly traveling and community awareness by presenting certificates to those who visit the area by bicycle. The campaign is set begin on March 26 with a 100km and a 200km bike tour. The routes, both starting from Taitung County’s Jialulan Recreation Area (伽路蘭遊憩區), famous for its driftwood art, will allow cyclists to visit scenic spots such as Sansiantai (三仙台) and the Basian Caves, the bureau said. Other events held on April 30, May 14, May 21 and May 28 will feature tours on Green Island (綠島), off the coast of Taitung County. The bureau will also hand out certificates to participants who visit the island with their bicycles.
ENVIRONMENT
Fishery talks possible: Ma
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said there was now a chance to discuss fishery resource conservation with China. Ma said he asked the Mainland Affairs Council to engage in talks with Beijing on developing the concept of conserving fish stocks. Ma said Chinese poachers use electricity, poison and explosives to catch fish, as opposed to conventional fishing methods. “We couldn’t talk to China then, but now we have the chance to embark on such talks,” Ma said, referring to the eased relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait since his 2008 inauguration. Ma made the remarks while receiving fishery officials from the Taiwan Provincial Fishermen’s Association and other local fishermen’s associations.
SOCIETY
Australian cycles for cash
An Australian man will help raise money for a women’s charity by embarking today on a two-week cycle trip around the nation. Inspired by the friendliness and passion of the Taiwanese people, 25-year-old Andrew Bonello from Melbourne decided to repay their goodwill by raising funds to build eco-friendly housing in rural areas by undertaking the trip. The round-the-island journey is 1,400 km long and Bonello is asking everyone to chip in NT$1 for each kilometer he rides, although he also noted that any donation would be welcomed. “This is something I’ve been saying I’d definitely do for quite a while,” he said in a blog set up for the fund--raising cause. “I welcome your company too, if you are willing to ride along for one hour, one day, a week or the whole trip,” he was quoted as saying in a press statement released by Garden of Hope, a nongovernmental organization established to support disadvantaged girls and women affected by sexual abuse, family violence and sex trafficking.
TAXATION
VAT refunds increase
The number of foreign travelers who applied for value added tax (VAT) refunds for items purchased during their visits totaled 249,000 last year, with more than NT$398 million (US$13.53 million) refunded, the Taipei Customs Office said yesterday. The amount translates to overall purchases amounting to NT$8.3 billion in goods, the office said. Among the visitors who applied for VAT refunds, about 50 percent were from China, while 12 percent were from Japan. The customs office said foreign visitors who make a single-day purchase of at least NT$3,000 at the same store, which offers the tax refund options, are eligible for a refund of the 5 percent VAT paid on the goods. To get the refund, claimants must apply within 30 days of the date of purchase at their place of departure and take the items out of the country.
ENVIRONMENT
Recycling bins required
Starting next month, there must be a receptacle placed near every beverage vending machine in the country so people can dispose of the cans and bottles, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said yesterday. The government has revised its regulations on the installation of recycling facilities, ruling that businesses operating vending machines in public places must place recycling bins within 50m of each machine. Violators could be fined between NT$60,000 and NT$300,000. Ma Nien-he (馬念和), an executive secretary of the agency’s Recycling Fund Management Board, said the new rule was designed to plug a loophole in the regulations governing waste recycling.
CRIME
Crackdown on hoarders
The Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office has vowed to harshly crack down on anyone caught hoarding food staples as part of the government’s efforts to stabilize food prices amid a string of price hikes following the Lunar New Year. The office said it has started collecting evidence by monitoring prices of major consumer products. Anyone found to have engaged in hoarding will be severely punished to the fullest extent of the law, it said, with jail terms of up to five years or fines of up to NT$3,000.
EDUCATION
Foreign students welcomed
The government wants to increase the number of foreign students to 100,000 over the next five years as part of its strategy to develop the tertiary education industry, Minister of Education Wu Ching-ji (吳清基) said. Thirty-eight cooperation agreements were signed during a week-long Taiwan-Thailand education seminar that ended on Wednesday, Wu said. Thailand agreed to provide scholarships for students to pursue doctoral degrees in Taiwan, while Taiwan will provide those students with free tuition.
ENTERTAINMENT
Jackson arrives in Taipei
R&B diva Janet Jackson arrived in Taipei yesterday afternoon for her first-ever concert in Taiwan last night. Jackson looked to be in high spirits when she arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. She waved to scores of screaming fans and took pictures of the scenes inside and outside the airport’s arrival lounge and of reporters covering her arrival, although she soon left the airport escorted by a security detail.
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