TRANSPORT
Electric buses in September
Greater Kaohsiung is to see 11 electric buses taking to the streets as soon as September, once all the recharging stations have been installed. The buses will run between the Zuoying high-speed railway station in Zuoying District (左營) and Cishan District (旗山), said Huang Jung-hui (黃榮輝), an official with the city’s transportation bureau. The first eight vehicles, completed last month, were not put into service because the recharging stations had not been fully installed, Huang said. He added that the 11 recharging stations, all in Cishan, are scheduled to be in place by the end of next month. When fully charged, the buses, built with government funding of NT$57 million (US$1.9 million), can cover 200km, or approximately two round-trips, Huang said.
LABOR
Teenagers get less pay
More than 90 percent of employers in Greater Taichung pay their teenage part-time workers less than the minimum wage and do not provide health and labor insurance coverage for them, according to a recent poll. The survey showed that while 69.7 percent of teenagers in Taichung are interested in working part time during the summer vacation, only 49.9 percent are aware that their employers are required by law to provide them with labor and health insurance coverage. Among the 33.7 percent of teens who said they had part-time work experience, 72.8 percent reported the pay they had received was below the minimum hourly wage of NT$103, while 89.8 percent said they had not been offered health and labor insurance coverage, according to the survey conducted by the Taichung-based Chionyuan Social Welfare Foundation. The survey was conducted from June 7 to June 20 among 1,178 students in junior and senior-high schools.
NATIONAL SECURITY
Council denies it is ‘tool’
The National Security Council on Tuesday denied a report that accused it of having been a political tool for the Chinese Nationlist Party (KMT) by monitoring opposition parties in the run-up to the January elections. The council said in a statement that the Hong Kong magazine Yazhou Zhoukan’s report about a flawed mechanism in the agency “is false.” The magazine reported that the mechanism to integrate the country’s security system and intelligence resources has become a tool for political wrestling between a ruling party and opposition parties. The reported also said the council gave an order to the Investigation Bureau to monitor the activities of opposition parties ahead of the elections. The council said had already explained that it did not conduct any intelligence gathering targeting opposition parties when a similar report emerged in December last year.
HEALTH
Missions are ‘valuable’
Taiwan’s overseas medical missions are a projection of the nation’s soft power, Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添) said yesterday at a meeting held to encourage hospitals to take part in international humanitarian projects. Describing medical missions as “valuable assets,” Yang said Taiwan’s success in conducting such missions since 1962 has gained the acclaim of its allies. Taiwan’s initiatives have also enabled the country to establish connections with other major international organizations, he told an audience of representatives from more than a dozen hospitals nationwide, citing a recent health program launched with Taiwan’s help in the Gambia that has greatly benefited pregnant mothers and babies.
MUSIC
Taichung hosts horn contest
Taichung will host its first international saxophone competition in mid-October as part of the city government’s efforts to promote the instrument. The contest will be held from Oct. 17 to Oct. 19 as a precursor of the city’s annual Oct. 20 to Oct. 28 jazz festival, Greater Taichung Deputy Mayor Hsiao Chia-chi (蕭家淇) said. To attract competitors from home and aboard, a top prize of US$30,000 will be offered, he said. Taiwanese ballads, including The Moon Represents My Heart (月亮代表我的心), Waiting for Spring Wind (望春風) and Flower in the Rainy Night (雨夜花), will be required tunes for all entries, he added. He said Greater Taichung’s Houli Township (后里) is known to saxophone players around the world as “the home of the horn,” thanks to its many, mostly family-owned, instrument manufacturing operations. More than 60 percent of the world’s saxophones come from Houli, he added.
HEALTH
Fish fail drugs tests
As much as 50 percent of East Asian fourfinger threadfin failed recent checks for drug residues, with some found to contain the antibiotic sulfonamide, according to the Department of Health’s Food and Drug Administration. The agency said it examined 67 products last month and nine of them failed the standards set for veterinary drug residue. Of the 67, 16 were threadfin products and eight failed the tests, it said, adding that five of the eight substandard threadfin products contained sulfonamides, while the other three contained leucomalachite green, a synthetic dye. Lin Chieh-liang (林杰樑), director of the toxicology department at the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, said excessive consumption of leucomalachite green can lead to liver damage and deformities in children.
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,