The Ministry of National Defense yesterday announced the schedules for the annual Wan-an (萬安) military drills and air raid drills, which did not take place last year.
“Although cross-strait relations have improved, people’s alertness of air raids should be maintained. To that end, the ministry has decided to reinstate air raid drills this year,” head of the mobilization department of Reserve Command Major General Tsai Chung-cheng (蔡忠誠) told a press conference.
Tsai said local government leaders would serve as directors of air raid drills this year and would be charged with siren broadcasts, evacuations and traffic control.
The general said seven air raid drills would be held separately in cities and counties in the northern, central, southern and eastern areas, as well as the outlying islands of Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu between May and June.
Residents in those areas are urged to stay inside buildings or follow instructions for evacuation during the 30-minute drill, while operators of vehicles will be required to pull over, Tsai said.
Failure to follow the rules could result in fines, he added.
The general added the dates and time would be announced by local governments seven days prior to the air raid drills.
Meanwhile, Tsai said since extreme weather has resulted in serious natural disasters globally and the nation’s geography made the country vulnerable to typhoons, floods and earthquakes, this year’s military drill would continue to focus on rescue and relief operations.
Tsai said the drills would help the military develop a working relationship with local governments in various types of national disaster relief efforts.
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,