EARTHQUAKE
Quake rocks east coast
A magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck in the sea off the east coast yesterday, but did not cause any damage, the Central Weather Bureau said. The quake hit at 9:33am, with its epicenter located at sea 80.7km east of the Hualien County Government building at a depth of 22.2km, the Seismology Center said. The strongest tremor felt on land, with an intensity of 1, was in Taroko Gorge and in Yilan County’s Nanao (南澳) and Luodong (羅東) townships.
CULTURE
NTCH to host jazz festival
The Summer Jazz Party at the National Theater and Concert Hall (NTCH) will showcase four international jazz artists, three of whom are Grammy winners, the NTCH said. The three are US jazz musician and composer Stanley Clarke, who is known for his mastery of double bass and electric bass techniques, Puerto Rican jazz tenor saxophonist David Sanchez and Cuban jazz pianist and composer Gonzalo Rubalcaba. Free outdoor jazz performances will be held in the main plaza on Aug. 16 and Aug. 17, featuring Taiwanese drummer Rich Huang (黃瑞豐), singer Shih Ying-ying (史茵茵), the NTCH jazz camp band and Gary Chaw X Sensation, a band made up of Malaysian-Chinese singer Gary Chaw (曹格) and musicians from Argentina and Brazil.
FISHERIES
Japan detains Suao boat
A fishing boat registered in the port of Suao (蘇澳), Yilan County, was detained by Japanese authorities yesterday on suspicion of fishing on Japan’s side of a temporary enforcement line in the two countries’ overlapping waters, a Suao fishermen’s association said. It said the Yi Sheng No.12 was detained about 25 nautical miles (46.3km) off Yonaguni Island and that it was helping the captain resolve the matter.
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,