HEALTHCARE
Cabinet mulls smoking levy
The Cabinet yesterday preliminarily decided to levy a health welfare surcharge of NT$40 on each pack of cigarettes, twice as high as the current rate, in an amendment to the Tobacco and Liquor Tax Act (菸酒稅法) in a meeting chaired by Minister Without Portfolio Simon Chang (張善政). The proposed amendment to raise the tax on a pack of cigarettes means a packet would cost NT$25 more if the amendment is passed by the legislature. According to a survey conducted by the Department of Health, more than 50 percent of respondents said that the proposal was acceptable, Chang said. Chang said the adjustment was aimed at reducing the number of smokers in the nation.
CRIME
Filipina faces fraud charges
A woman from the Philippines faces prosecution in Taiwan after allegedly using fake credit cards to buy luxury goods on an EVA Air flight, authorities said yesterday. The woman, identified only as Janice, was arrested on March 15 when transiting through Kaohsiung International Airport en route to Bangkok, the Criminal Investigation Bureau said, adding that she had confessed to the crime. The woman is said to be a member of a group of fraudsters who buy watches, expensive pens and beauty products on international flights using fake credit cards and resell them in China. Female members of the group dress like rich women and travel in business class to make their act more credible, the bureau said. EVA Air contacted the police after 52 transactions worth NT$1.2 million (US$40,000) were rejected by banks. The bureau is sending out an alert to other countries through Interpol to seek help in locating others involved in the scheme.
DESIGN
Students win competition
Two Taiwanese students have won a prize at an international design competition with a device that serves as both a drink holder and a bicycle lock, National Cheng Kung University said yesterday. The device, called “DrinLock,” was among the 22 prize winners at the International Bicycle Design Competition 2013, said the Tainan-based university, where Kao Hua-cheng (高華成) and Chen Chien-wei (陳建維) are studying for master’s degrees. Besides its functions as a drink holder and a lock, the design also incorporates a light reflector to improve road safety. The competition was organized by the Taiwan-based Cycling and Health Tech Industry R&D Center, which held this year’s event jointly with iF Design Talent in Germany, the arm of iF International Forum Design that promotes young designers. A total of 391 designs from 45 countries were accepted for the competition this year, the organizers said.
TOURISM
Injured tourists back home
Several Taiwanese who were injured last week in a tour bus accident in China returned home yesterday, while the remains of one of the three people killed were also returned. The bus was carrying 13 Taiwanese tourists and a tour manager when it overturned while swerving to avoid an accident on a freeway in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province, on Monday, the Tourism Bureau said. Three women were killed and 11 people injured. The tour was operated by Lion Travel. The bodies of two of the women were transported back to Taiwan on Thursday, and the ashes of the third one were brought back by her relatives yesterday. The injured Taiwanese tourists who returned yesterday were the last tourists from the ill-fated tour to return home.
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,