CRIME
Facebook flirt murdered
A jealous husband led an assault on a Facebook user who had flirted with his wife online, killing the man, police said yesterday. A 34-year-old resident of Pingtung County surnamed Chou (周) told police he had requested a meeting with the 40-year-old victim, surnamed Chuang (莊), after he found out about the online relationship. When Chuang turned up at the agreed spot outside a restaurant early on Saturday morning, Chou and two of his friends attacked him with baseball bats, police said. The three men reportedly thought they had not inflicted life-threatening injuries. Chuang was discovered dead shortly afterwards. All three alleged assailants have been arrested.
EARTHQUAKE
No damage from 5.4 quake
A moderate tremblor of magnitude of 5.4 struck southeast of Suao (蘇澳), Yilan County, early yesterday, US seismologists said, but there were no immediate reports of damage and no tsunami warning was issued. The tremor struck at 5:43am 73km southeast of Suao at a depth of 25km, the US Geological Survey said.
IMMIGRATION
Foreign parent rule revised
The government has changed its visa regulations pertaining to parents of foreign spouses, allowing them 90-day stays instead of one month, the National Immigration Agency said on Sunday. The regulation, to take effect immediately, was revised in response to requests by new immigrants, the agency said. Parents of non-pregnant foreign spouses can now apply for visas for up to 90 days, which would be non-extendable, the agency said. In cases of foreign spouses who are pregnant, their parents can apply for extendable 90-day visas, the agency said. The supporting documents for such applications include one that shows when the baby is due, the agency said. Parents of foreign spouses are allowed to stay in Taiwan for up to 180 days a year, the agency said, adding that adjustments can be made in certain cases.
TRAVEL
Cruise liner stops in Hualien
Luxury cruise company Holland America Line made its first stop in the country in about 20 years when one of its liners, carrying about 1,400 Japanese, arrived in Hualien yesterday morning, a company spokeswoman said. The Netherlands-registered cruise ship MS Zaandam arrived in the port at about 8am and its passengers were taken to Taroko National Park. The liner, which was chartered by Japanese tour operators rather than on a regularly scheduled itinerary, set off from Kobe on Thursday and stopped in Nagasaki. It was to leave for Greater Kaohsiung later yesterday, before heading back to Kobe, Japan, the spokeswoman said. The cruise line had planned to include Taiwan among its destinations in 2009, but dropped the idea because of restrictions on foreign ships sailing between China and Taiwan. It was unclear if the latest charter would encourage the inclusion of Taiwanese ports in Holland America Line’s itineraries. The stopover was also a milestone of sorts for Hualien and the nation in general as local officials have made efforts to attract international cruise lines, including setting up facilities in several harbor cities to expedite immigration procedures and expand international cruise services. However, there have been complaints in Hualien that while several cruise liners have visited the city over the years, most tourists did not stay overnight, limiting opportunities for local businesses.
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