DIPLOMACY
SEF sends quake message
The Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) sent a message to its Chinese counterpart yesterday expressing concern for the victims of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake that hit Yunnan Province on Thursday, a foundation spokesman said. In the message, the SEF also conveyed condolences to the victims’ families and expressed the hope that damaged homes could be rebuilt as soon as possible. No Taiwanese were injured in the earthquake, the SEF said, after contacting the Beijing-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait. The earthquake jolted Yingjiang County in Yunnan, close to the border with Myanmar, on Thursday, killing more than two dozen people.
HEALTH
Taipei to mark Kidney Day
A carnival of fun and educational activities will be held tomorrow in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) to raise public awareness about kidney disease prevention, the Taipei City Government announced yesterday. As kidney-related disease ranks among the top 10 causes of death in the country, the city government organizes programs every year to advise residents how to keep their kidneys healthy, Department of Health officials said. The second Thursday of March each year is designated World Kidney Day. This year’s campaign slogan — Protect Your Kidneys and Save Your Heart — aligns with this year’s international theme, which seeks to highlight chronic kidney disease as a major risk factor in cardiovascular disease. “We expect 3,000 people, especially adults and the elderly, to attend the carnival,” the health department said. Participants can have their urine tested and their blood pressure checked, as well as getting a physical examination from doctors at 24 booths set up at the event, it said. The carnival, which will be followed by a lucky draw, will take place from 2pm to 5pm.
MEDIA
US-based Kuo wins award
US-based Taiwanese director Kuo Yen-ting (郭嫣婷) won the Tokyo Big Sight Award with her animation Swing at the Tokyo International Anime Fair, the largest animation fair in the world, making her the first Taiwanese to win the award. Kuo, who was born in Taipei, received a bachelor’s degree in film production from Southern Taiwan University and a master’s degree in animation from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Swing is an animation she made when she was a graduate student.
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