HEALTH
Watch out for Ebola: ministry
Taiwanese planning to visit Uganda should be aware of an outbreak of Ebola virus there that has left 16 people dead, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said yesterday. “Those who are traveling to the African country should pay close attention to the situation,” Department of African Affairs Director-General David Wang (王建業) said. As of Friday last week, there were 53 suspected cases of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, including 16 deaths, according to the WHO. The seriousness of the Ebola outbreak has even prompted Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to urge residents of the country to avoid unnecessary physical contact and unsafe sex, Wang said. Currently, about 20 Taiwanese businessmen and their families reside in Uganda.
AVIATION
Bomb hoax fines set
The maximum fine for a bomb hoax or the spread of false information that threatens flight safety is NT$1 million (US$33,350), according to aviation authorities. Violators could face a maximum three-year prison sentence under Article 105 of the Civil Aviation Act (民用航空法), the Aviation Police Office said. The office reminded people to refrain from saying as a joke that “they have a bomb in their luggage.” The office’s announcement came after a 53-year-old woman, surnamed Wu (吳), who was flying with China Airlines from Taiwan to Los Angeles, claimed she was carrying a bomb in her luggage during check-in on Sunday. Aviation police checked Wu’s luggage thoroughly, but did not find any explosives. Wu denied saying anything about carrying a bomb while being questioned by aviation police. However, statements by airline staff contradicted her claim. Wu was sent to Taoyuan District Prosecutor Office to be charged with violating the aviation act.
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