POLITICS
Facebook use a must: Lo
Presidential Office spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) yesterday endorsed the use of Facebook by government employees to defend public policies, calling it a “must” in the Internet era. “The use of social networking Web sites like Facebook or Plurk by government officials to explain policies or duty-related tasks to the public during office hours is lawful, according to the Ministry of Civil Service,” Lo said. Citing the findings of a survey by the Taiwan Network Information Center, Lo said more than 70 percent of Taiwanese are Internet users, making it easier for the government to communicate and exchange opinions with fellow citizens. People can also convey their ideas to government agencies through the sites, which Lo said would help the government better carry out its policies. On Friday, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who created an official Facebook page late last month, encouraged Cabinet members to use cyber tools to defend government policies.
EDUCATION
Literacy rate breaks 98%
The nation’s literacy rate pushed above 98 percent for the first time ever last year, with elderly women the only demographic group where illiteracy remains an issue, according to statistics released yesterday by the Ministry of the Interior. The rate of literacy among people aged 15 and over was 98.04 percent last year, continuing a steady improvement since 2000, when Taiwan’s literacy rate was 2.49 percentage points lower, the statistics showed. While 13.11 percent of the population aged 65 years old and above remained illiterate, accounting for most of the illiterate population in the country, almost all Taiwanese aged 15 to 24 are able to read and write, according to the figures. The overall literacy rate of Taiwanese women was 3 percent lower than their male counterparts, but the gap existed primarily because 22.2 percent of Taiwanese women over 65 years old are illiterate, compared with only 3.1 percent of elderly men. There was very little difference in the literacy level of men and women under 45 years of age, the statistics showed.
TOURISM
Buses made accessible
Barrier-free buses are now available for people with disabilities who wish to visit the Yangmingshan Flower Festival, the Taipei City government said yesterday. The new No. 126 buses, equipped with low floors, ramps and extra space inside to accommodate wheelchairs, run between the Taipei Main Station and Yangmingshan’s Flower Clock, a famous tourist spot lying on a gentle slope. A traffic official from the city government said if the service works well, the city government would consider running the special buses on the route regularly. Those who wish to use the service should go to North Gate No. 2 of Taipei Main Station. The buses depart at the top of the hour from 7am to 4pm, with fares the same as for regular Taipei City buses.
SOCIETY
New Youth Day proposed
A Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker unveiled yesterday a draft law that would change Youth Day from March 29 to April 27. The day is intended to commemorate the young Chinese revolutionary fighters who died in the 10th uprising against the Manchus in Canton on April 27, 1911, or the 29th day of the third lunar month of that year. According to Legislator Chao Li-yun (趙麗雲), March 29 was designated Youth Day in the past according to the lunar calendar, but the day should actually be remembered on April 27, according to the Republic of China calendar.
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,