SOCIETY
Lily festival in bloom
The annual Zhuzihu Calla Lily Festival will take place at Yangmingshan’s (陽明山) Flower Dale Calla Plantation from Friday until April 29 and will feature music and dance performances, as well as guided tours of the area to learn about the ecology and cultural assets. The Calla Lily Festival, which follows the Yangmingshan Flower Festival, features the theme of Aesop’s Fables, with some of the most well-known stories incorporated into the floral displays. Taipei City’s Department of Economic Development said there would be activities and offers throughout the festival, ranging from concerts and treasure hunts to preferential offers from stores close to the calla lily farm. The department said the flowers are expected to reach full bloom late this month or early next month. For traffic information, visit www.callalily.com.tw or call (02) 2892-4185 ext. 540.
WEATHER
Rain, fog approaching
The chance of rain in several regions will increase from today with the arrival of a new frontal system, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. After days of warm temperatures and clear skies, an approaching frontal system could bring showers to northern and eastern areas, the bureau said. Greater fluctuations in temperature can also be expected nationwide, with heavy fog likely in western Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, the bureau said. Early in the week, temperatures are likely to hover around 16oC to 22oC in the north, 17oC to 27oC in central areas, 19oC to 28oC in the south and 17oC to 26oC in the east, it added.
SOCIETY
Online purchases revealed
About 50 percent of the nation’s white-collar workers prefer to shop online, with clothes, books and high-tech gadgets their most popular purchases, according to a recent poll. The convenience of not having to leave home to shop and having purchases delivered is the main reason why working people prefer to shop online, as indicated by 13.17 percent of respondents to the poll conducted by the Bureau of Employment and Vocational Training’s online job bank. Other reasons include the freedom to shop at any time (11.39 percent) and group shopping at the office (11.39 percent), the survey showed. The survey also found that about 50 percent of working people spend a maximum of NT$1,000 (US$34) a month on online purchases. The most popular products among online shoppers are clothing and accessories (15.21 percent), books and magazines (15.21 percent), and computers and other high-tech products (13.69 percent), according to the poll. The poll was conducted from Dec. 1 last year to Jan. 17 and collected 671 valid responses.
SOCIETY
Urban renewal rally today
Members of the Wang (王) family in Taipei City’s Shilin District (士林) — who are resisting an urban renewal project initiated by Le Young Construction — and their supporters are to hold a rally this afternoon to voice their opposition to the project and the forced demolition of their family home, which could happen any time after today. The city government has set today as the deadline for self-demolition. The rally will begin with a news conference at 2pm and will be followed by performances by several local bands in support of the family. There will be discussion sessions and a documentary on a South Korean campaign against an urban renewal project will be screened. The rally will take place in front of the Wangs’ two-story family home, close to exit 1 of the Shilin MRT Station.
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,