TRAVEL
Bosnia to grant visa waiver
Bosnia and Herzegovina has decided to grant Republic of China passport holders visa-waiver privileges, bringing the number of countries and regions Taiwanese can visit without a visa or landing visa to 128, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. Yaser Cheng (鄭泰祥), deputy director-general of the ministry’s Department of European Affairs, said that the southeastern European country has not yet announced the maximum stay for visa-waiver visitors or the program’s implementation date, but he expected it to do so soon. Separately, Cheng advised Taiwanese visitors to the UK to remain vigilant following a number of incidents in which tourists have encountered fake police officers who demanded to see their credentials and took their wallets.
SOCIETY
Google map used in case
A judge recently used a Google map showing an unleashed dog as evidence a man was responsible for his neighbor’s bike accident. The defendant, surnamed Lee (李), denied being the dog’s owner and causing injury through negligence. The victim, surnamed Peng (彭), testified that he became scared after the dog began chasing him when he was riding his bicycle in July last year, as a result of which he fell and injured his forehead. Judge Song Kuo-chen said yesterday that a two-year-old Google Street View picture showed the dog standing in Lee’s yard, which meant that Lee was its owner. The judge fined Lee NT$59,000.
WEATHER
Mercury hits year high
Temperatures of 36.2oC were recorded in Taipei yesterday, surpassing the year’s previous high of 36.1oC on Tuesday, according to the Central Weather Bureau. The high was recorded at 11:57am, following days of sunny weather caused by a Pacific high pressure system. The weather pattern has affected the whole nation, with daily highs ranging between 30oC and 35oC, the bureau said. However, showers were likely later in the day in southern and southeastern regions because of an approaching tropical depression, the bureau said.
AVIATION
Airport numbers set record
The number of passengers passing though Taiwanese airports reached a 10-year high from January to May, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday. The ministry said passenger traffic through the country’s 17 airports, including three international ones, in the first five months of the year was 18.23 million, an increase of 13.9 percent from the same period last year and the highest in a decade. The number of passengers on international routes, including Hong Kong and Macau, was more than 9.53 million, up 10.9 percent year-on-year, ministry statistics showed. Air travel between Taiwan and China also increased in the first five months of the year, with passenger numbers rising 31.4 percent to more than 3.66 million year-on-year, the figures showed. The ministry attributed the increases in part to the creation of the “Northeast Asia Golden Aviation Circle” with direct flights from Taipei International Airport (Songshan) to Haneda International Airport in Tokyo, Hongqiao Airport in Shanghai and Gimpo Airport in Seoul. Passenger traffic at Songshan airport in the first five months of the year was 2.23 million, about 12.23 percent of the total, a ministry official said.
TRAVEL
Youth agency launches draw
The government is offering prizes to young people who share pictures of their overseas exchange experiences in order to promote more international exchange activities, the National Youth Commission said yesterday. Young people are encouraged to share up to three photos from international exchanges such as volunteer programs, internships or working holidays, the commission said. A 140-word description should be attached to the pictures, the commission added. Not only will this campaign promote international exchanges, but it will also allow countries around the world to learn more about the many aspects of Taiwan, the commission said. A total of 43 prizes are up for grabs, with the winners being chosen at random. The prizes include cameras, luggage locks, suitcases, clothing and cellphone straps. All entries must be submitted before Aug. 31 and should be posted online via the iYouth (Youth International Exchange Information) Web site.
SOCIETY
Nationwide quake drill
An earthquake drill to be held on Sept. 21, in which school children around the country will take part, was described by Premier Sean Chen (陳冲) at a quarterly meeting on disaster prevention and protection as a “meaningful event” that will require cooperation by relevant agencies. The goal of the drill is to teach the nation’s students how to take cover within the space of one minute, the Natural Disaster Prevention and Protection Office said. The office said that drills for natural disasters have been held every Sept. 21 since 2000. Chen also ordered that a task force be created to study ways to enhance the country’s infrastructure after reading a research report by the National Science Council on possible scenarios of tsunamis hitting Taiwan.
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,