WEATHER
Wu to give rebuilding update
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) is scheduled to give an international press conference on Monday next week on the progress of reconstruction work in the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot. Morakot hit Taiwan on Aug. 8, 2009, leaving 724 people dead or missing. At a Cabinet meeting yesterday, Wu pushed government agencies to expedite work on repairing bridges and roads, or building new ones, in rural and mountainous areas battered by the typhoon. As the typhoon season is now in full swing with another storm approaching, Wu called on the Ministry of the Interior and local governments to make sure evacuation and settlement plans are in place, and that rescuers and voluntary workers organized by the Council of Agriculture are fully prepared.
Photo: CNA
TRAVEL
Caution urged over Xinjiang
Travelers to Xinjiang should exercise extreme caution because the region has experienced a new outbreak of violence in recent days, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday. Citing Chinese media reports, the council said in a statement that on Saturday, two bombs shook the streets of Kashgar. An hour after the blasts, two attackers hijacked a truck on a nearby street, killed its driver and then drove it into a crowd of pedestrians. The attackers then got out of the truck and began stabbing passers-by. The incident left seven people dead and 28 injured. Less than 24 hours later, a larger group of men carried out a second attack in which six people were killed and 28 injured. The council advised Taiwanese intending to travel to the region to be mindful of news updates and their own safety.
CRIME
Four vendors indicted
Four people were indicted on Wednesday by the Miaoli District Prosecutors’ Office on charges of violating the Health Food Control Act (健康食品管理法) after they were allegedly found selling fake health foods and running TV ads to attract customers. Lin Li-chia (林李嘉), chief prosecutor at the office, said those indicted each owned a company selling health foods. They were found to be selling eight kinds of unregistered and uncertified products between October 2009 and September last year, making more that NT$700 million (US$24.24 million) off at least 100,000 unsuspecting victims, Lin said. Prosecutors discovered that consumers reported a variety of symptoms after consuming the products, such as constant diarrhea, headaches and vomiting.
MEDIA
GIO denies Wu involvement
Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Philip Yang (楊永明) yesterday denied a Democratic Progressive Party allegation that he forced the Central News Agency (CNA) to change a story headline on Wednesday regarding Premier Wu Den-yih’s (吳敦義) comments on the alleged threat that led taekwondo athlete Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君) to withdraw an appeal against a controversial ruling. Yang said he contacted CNA because his staffers found the original headline to be inconsistent with Wu’s comments and did not reflect the content of the report. It is the GIO’s duty to ask the press to run corrections when there is incorrect news coverage about the government, he said. The headline initially read: “Wu admits he was aware ahead of time of Yang [Shu-chun]’s announcement to drop the appeal.” It was later changed to: “Wu fully supports Yang [Shu-chun] and the government has not changed its position on the matter.”
HISTORY
ROC photos displayed in UK
A photographic exhibition organized by the Taipei Representative Office in the UK and a local research institute opened in London on Wednesday to provide an overview of the unique history and development of the Republic of China (ROC). The opening reception of “Retracing Our Steps: A Photographic Journey Through the 100 Years of the ROC” was held that day in the Brunei Gallery at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. More than 70 photos are on display, recording important events in the ROC’s development, Taiwanese Representative to the UK Katharine Chang (張小月) said. Included in the exhibition is a photo depicting ROC founding father Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) taking office as provisional president on Jan. 1, 1912. There is also a photo of the Cairo Conference, where then-president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), then-US president Franklin Roosevelt and then-British prime minister Winston Churchill are sitting together. The exhibition will run through Aug. 30.
TOURISM
Hotel choices to be limited
The Tourism Bureau said it would soon limit the hotels where Chinese tour groups can stay to reduce travel disputes. The new policy is designed to improve travel quality and will take effect as early as the second half of next year, Tourism Bureau Director-General Janice Lai (賴瑟珍) said. Citing the five-star ratings system the bureau is pushing for, Lai said the lack of a unified rating system has become a major cause of disputes over travel arrangements. According to the bureau, there are 103 tourist hotels and more than 2,600 regular hotels in Taiwan, but only 116 of them are under the evaluation of the ratings system
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,