FESTIVALS
Angry balloon set to fly
A hot air balloon in the form of a character from the hit computer game Angry Birds is to make its world debut in Taitung County at a hot air balloon festival, the event organizers said yesterday. The idea of “a huge red bird truly flying in the sky” will finally come true at the two-month Taiwan Balloon Festival, which set to open today and is schedule to run until Aug. 11, the Taitung County Government said. However, the nearly 25m high balloon, made from about 2.5km of nylon fabric and 24km2 of thread is only due to stay in Taiwan until June 25, before being displayed in Germany, the government said. Benedict Savio, chief executive officer of Global Media Box, which owns the balloon, is leading a team to Taiwan that will pilot the balloon, the organizers said. The volume of the balloon is nearly 3,000m3, “enough to contain approximately half a million fist-sized Angry Birds,” according to the maker, Cameron Balloons.
TOURISM
New app to guide tourists
The state-funded Institute for Information Industry has launched a mobile application on tourism that aims to provide specially tailored travel packages for visitors. The “Smart Tourism Taiwan” app integrates information from travel agents and government departments that can make it easier for tourists to get around and improve their stay, the institute said in a statement. The app, available on Android and iOS systems, can keep tourists up to date on the weather, transportation schedules and exchange rates and suggest day tours that include major attractions, popular delicacies and souvenir shopping. It also has an interactive feature that can tailor recommendations based on where users plan to be, when they plan to travel and the amount of time they have for a trip, the institute said. After users input their interests and schedule, the app can recommend the most suitable activities, it added.
FISHERIES
Japan releases vessel
A Taiwanese fishing boat that was detained by Japanese authorities on Wednesday for trespassing in waters south of Japan’s Yaeyama Islands has been released and its captain has also been freed after being fined, the Fisheries Agency said yesterday. The 45-tonne Yi Sheng No. 12 from Yilan County was released at 12:48pm on Thursday, the agency said. The fishing boat was suspected of having strayed beyond the area covered by a recent fishing agreement between Taiwan and Japan that stipulates their fishing rights in their overlapping exclusive economic zones in the East China Sea. It was the fourth time a Taiwanese fishing boat had been detained by Japanese authorities since the two countries signed the agreement on April 10 on fishing rights near the disputed Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan.
SOCIETY
Golf club bans smoking
Feng Yuan Golf and Country Club in Greater Taichung announced a complete ban on smoking on Thursday, becoming the first smoke-free golf club in the country. The club’s general manager, Chang Ping-kun (張炳坤), said he would not mind if the policy impacts business because “real good health is related to a non-smoking environment” and he hoped that people using the club can be spared the potential harm of second-hand smoke. To underscore the club’s no-smoking policy, the management set up a large sign at the entrance.
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,