NATIONAL SECURITY
NIA inks pact with US school
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) signed an agreement with a US university yesterday to cooperate on research into counter-terrorism and other security issues. The agreement was signed by agency Director-General Hsieh Li-kung (謝立功) and University of Houston-Downtown president William Flores during a video conference. The two sides will cooperate on studies of counter-terrorism, homeland security, criminal justice, human trafficking, immigration affairs and other issues, Hsieh said in a statement. The two parties will also attend conferences, seminars and speeches and carry out research at each other’s institutes, the agency said. The agreement will allow the two parties to share research on security issues, it said.
SOCIETY
Artists join project in Japan
A group of Taiwanese artists has teamed up with Japanese counterparts to launch a “white house” art project aimed at boosting the morale of victims of Japan’s March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Between Wednesday and Sunday next week, 36 Taiwanese and Japanese artists will create paintings on a white building that they have constructed from canvases in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, said the Formosa Wall Painting Group, which initiated the project. Around 40 paintings will be created, while children from the disaster area will be invited to paint stones and exhibit their own artwork, the Kaohsiung-based group said. The paintings will be on display in Ishinomaki until July, after which the portable “white house” exhibit will be moved to Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, and then to Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture. Otsuchi was heavily damaged by the 2011 quake, while Kobe was devastated by a massive quake in 1995.
AGRICULTURE
Carnation prices doubled
Wholesale prices for carnations have been doubled from a year earlier in the run-up to Mother’s Day, due to lower production, the Agriculture and Food Agency (AFA) said yesterday. The average wholesale price was NT$65 (US$2.20) per bunch of 10 flowers, double the price for the same period of last year, AFA Deputy Director Huang Mei-hua (黃美華) said. About 3.42 million dozen carnations were grown nationwide this year, down from the 3.84 million dozen stems produced last year, largely as a result of inclement weather, she added. She said this year’s production of the flower traditionally given on Mother’s Day, which falls on May 12 this year, covered 67 hectares, with 55 hectares given over to the crop in Changhua County alone.
ASTRONOMY
Stargazing event to be held
A stargazing event to look at the Crux constellation will take place in Pingtung County tomorrow in an effort to promote astronomy, the event’s organizers said. About 2,000 stargazers, including 1,200 students from local schools, are expected to attend the event in Maobitou Park, a popular location for local astronomy enthusiasts. Visible to skywatchers south of the Tropic of Cancer, Crux can only be seen in certain counties — including Pingtung — said Jiayi Elementary School Principal Shih Shih-chih (施世治), one of the organizers. Pingtung has been promoting astronomy since last year by designating four local schools and 70 teachers to promote related programs. The event is to take place from 4:30pm to 10pm. More information is available at http://familystar.org.tw/events/event.php?events_id=168.
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